shenanigans

well it has been a while but it was nearly about to be a whole lot longer. yesterday featured a computer crisis of sorts. it started at school when i went in for a review session; computer would be all plugged in and then somehow nonetheless lose all power. i figured something wasn't plugged in right, messed around for a minute, and it was fine. went home and it kept doing the same thing, getting progressively more and more touchy. i made the mistake of letting all the power run out before i grabbed everything i needed off of it. fortunately, i was able to get it to charge up by pinning the notebook against myself and firmly pressing the ac power connector thing into the jack. problematic, but i managed to run the power up to about 20% of the battery; enough time to get things off it should i need to. given the nature of the problem, i was reasonably certain that the power supply was the offending piece in the puzzle. i wasn't happy about the prospect of buying one, but better to buy a power supply than have to send my computer off for four weeks to get repaired while i kind of need it to study for/take my exams. so buy a power supply it was.
or it was supposed to be. i walked to a nearby computer refurbishing sort of place and explained my situation. the clerk took my laptop and immediately stuck a small screwdriver in the ac jack and wiggled it around, claiming the jack was loose and that was my problem, not the power supply. i wanted to plug a different power supply in to see if it would work, but they were not having it. the original clerk handed off to someone who seemed more in charge and he repeated the process with a pen instead of the screwdriver. told me it would have to bee opened up, very costly he said. well, shit. i wasn't about to shell out for all that cause the computer has a warranty that would cover it. at least i had charged it up, i figured, can always get what i need even if i have to send it off someplace and try and find a way to make due during a time where making due is not an ideal approach; something more is required. but i didn't have a lot of options. i went back home and called the circuit city number on my warranty, which was about as far from helpful as could even be imagined. every path through the automatic routing left me with some other 800 number. the hell with it, i figured. the warranty type lists it as 'walk in' so no matter what i find out, i obviously need to walk into a circuit city someplace at some point. so find a circuit city i was. luckily i do have some driving friends out here, and they were good enough to get me way out to the northeast of the city where the closest circuit city was.
after some minor traffic/directional confusion (the roads up there are all fuckin' slanty, you know, like lake drive in gun rue, no perpendicular intersections at all) we found the place. i busted out the computer again and made my case, this time explaining i believed the problem was with the jack as i had been told. the clerk, who did a good job, immediately rustled up the appropriate jack adapter to test for power over a the power supply he had at the desk. much to my delight, the lights came on - it was the power supply after all. that is the good news. the bad news is that yeah, the jack is kind of loose, but it is sure as hell working for now. also, i still had to buy a new power supply for the time being. the warranty actually covered my power supply though, so they are ordering me a new one, and when it comes in i get that one for free and i can allegedly return the one i had to drop $130 on. this is a good thing. so fingers crossed that the jack doesn't wind up failing me in the middle of an exam. i think i'll be alright. even if that did happen, the exam set-up is designed to handle it i think. i don't know. and i hope i don't find out, really.
so i am home and so is my dear computer. i felt excruciatingly crippled while it was not working. i didn't even know what to do with myself while i killed time waiting for my ride. played some records and some wii, so i guess i got by. but i do realize how dependent on this thing i am. so it goes. in addition for all the enjoyment it provides me, it is also the site of the ongoing battle of the procedure known as civil. that is my first exam. the upside is that we didn't cover half the amount of material we probably did in say con law, but what we did do in civ pro is disgustingly arcane and dry. super dry. dry like trying to eat a dozen saltines in under a minute with no water. apt analogy in that both rapid saltine consumption and civ pro are serious choking hazards. i should check the inside cover of my textbook, i bet it has a warning about not being left near children. warning - book is not a toy. although mine kind of looks like it was used as a soccer ball at some point. note to self - a used book costs the same no matter how used it is or is not. i have probably seen the last of used books for my tenure in legal education though; maybe a couple for the small number of big classes i wind up in, but i hope to mostly be in classes small enough that no one has bothered publishing a book for them. some of them will probably have skinny books that get reprinted every year though, and those will indeed be costly. so much to look forward to.
in other news, i am done with drum. had it, totally. they changed the cut of the tobacco a while ago, and it is my personal belief (rooted in sufficient experience) that not only does it not hand-roll as well, but it also causes it to dry out quicker. as some of you may know, shortly after pouch tobacco dries, it inevitably gets pulverized into tobacco powder. not an advisable source of nicotine. so fuck you drum. you chased me away with your fifty as opposed to sixty papers and pandering to the machine-roll crowd. today, though, i didn't even have any halfzware options (language note - halfzware is dutch and means "half-heavy"). not even (shudder) bali. so i went with samson bright blend, which is essentially, i dunno, quarter heavy? reminds me of american spirit roll in aroma, but is dissimilar in a superior manner to other aspects of said roll. no updates for a week or two, and this is what i have to tell you. i bet it is really tough to get a job as a tobacconist these days. probably you have to be a cigar person, and i'll pass on that business. one of the guys i know from drexel law did that for a few years, maybe i will ask him about employment projections in the tobacco sector.
i am hoping to make it to baltimore this weekend for the kinetic sculpture race. originally i had hoped to go down early and catch hot buttered rum, a pretty good SF bluegrass band. people we know play in an exceptionally entertaining band called hoots and hellmouth (gah i feel dirty linking to myspace), and they are opening and could possibly get us guest list spots. this, however, was before i lost a day's worth of study time to the whole ordeal with the power supply, so we shall see. mostly now i am hoping to make it down there at all, and i suspect that i will, for good or ill. i will of course let y'all know how it turns out. it is things like that where i really wish i had a camera, because guaranteed there is gonna be some cool stuff to see. i'm sure plenty of other people feel the same and have cameras though, so the event will be more than adequately documented. philly is trying to start their own up in kensington this year, and i would like to see that as well and compare the two. also want to get to kensington to check out yards or philadelphia brewing company; i can never remember how that split worked out and who wound up where with what building and who is brewing what on the other's premises. anyway, should be a good time. i believe it is also my sister's birthday then. also, the first day after my last exam. yes, good times in the works. now to make it from here to there.
i did manage to squeeze in quite an evening's entertainment this past friday as well. for all the things i like about my go-to watering hole, i usually do not intentionally go there to see a band. this was the exception. phish cover band i had heard good things about. say what you will, but i certainly had a hell of a time. i have heard quite a few bands play there, and the sound has never been better. they were pretty tight and really focused, did a great job executing some of the trickier moments in what they played. i guess it was the bass player's first real show with them, but the dude could have fooled me. not overbearing, but always solid and audible in the mix. last friday was also my last day of class, so the show was really towards the end of what served as plenty of a self-congratulatory afternoon. for all of that, i could probably give you a set list from memory. just can't help myself sometimes.
my employment prospects have recently improved from none at all to something i would like to do that i might actually get to do. just a research assistant gig for one of my profs, but i really like the stuff he works on and we had a pretty good talk the other day. sounds like he would actually have plenty of work for me to do, which is also a plus since some research assistant jobs at law schools do not involve quite so scholarly a professor. i was glad our discussion went well though because i have not gone out of my way to make waves in property, which is what i have him for. on the other hand, i have had the answer whenever he calls on me, so that bodes well. he is always trying to pull something, asking me when he catches me yawning or looking otherwise possibly disengaged. no man, i'm there, i'm just not going to waste everyone's time with what i think. we have plenty of other people doing that already. oh, and check this shit out. a couple of other people naturally put in an app of some sort with this professor for this gig. one of them happens to be that voice-like-nails-on-a-chalkboard harpy who has plagued my education all year. here is the best part though: that bitch ALREADY HAS a fucking research assistant job with another prof. i know because one of my friends also already has a similar job, and they all had some orientation thing recently, which is how i found out yet another factor in this broad's rampant douchebaggery. this really takes the cake. my friend shows me an email send to the listserv for the people who have these sorts of jobs this summer, and sticking out of the list like some lighthouse of annoyance is this chick's email address in all caps. i shit you not. all caps. no one else puts one capital in their whole address. i just keep telling myself that other law schools i could have gone to probably have even more of her. what the hell, people.
speaking of which, one more thing. this story is one of those things that is so egregious one cannot help but have a few things to say. i have to say, thanks bureaucracy (man did i have tough time spelling that). way to suck like you are supposed to. nothing is ever anyone's fault. sorry ma'am, i have orders -- i could lose my job. and i can't lose my job, so you are losing your kid. if you still didn't read the story, you should. it is about a professor at u of m who bought his seven year old a mike's hard lemonade at a baseball game because he didn't know there was such a product as lemonade with alcohol. it gets better from there. always does.
straw is still really freaked out about some fireworks that went off like twenty minutes ago, and so i am going to call it good here and try to soothe him. i can't blame him; they caught me just as off-guard.