Happy news at NDLaw

Profound and sincere congratulations to The Bard for recently obtaining a judicial clerkship with Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Danny Boggs. It is a high honor, and one I know you will distinguish.

More kittenblogging

I cracked the door open the other day and came in the room to find Puck clinging to the screen between it and the glass door.Apparently he had seen a gnat and wanted a closer look. He never got it between his paws, I'm sad to report.
This is my new dishwashing service. Trust me, we're usually very sanitary. Puck was duly scolded and evicted from the table soon after this picture was taken (not that scolding a kitten is ever very effective).

Note to self: Close lid on record player when not changing the record. I couldn't figure out why I kept hearing the record skip backward and forward randomly until I realized that turntable needles are fascinating to kittens. Heh. Proof that cats are smarter than dogs: The silly RCA Victor dog just sits and listens with a puzzled expression. The Detrola kitten is not content unless he's the DJ...

Cheers to Brendan lad!

Me mate Brendan has a post worth notin' to honor this great day.

Some culture for ye scurrrrvy dogs!

Avast! Ye ought to know of a merry Orchestra playin' this Sunday at the DeBartelo Tavern of the Performing Arts near 2:00. I hear a sight o' th' beauties playin' the horns of France is worth the cost of sailing. See you there, me mates!

It's that time of year again!

Is everyone ready for the big day tomorrow? You know, of course, that I am referring to that storied holiday, Talk Like a Pirate Day! If you need a little help, our good friends Ol' Chumbucket and Cap'n Slappy have put together a little video to help you learn to speak Pirate. Of course, if you're lazy, there's always the ol' English-to-Pirate translator. Keep to the code, me hearties!

Notre Dame: But we look good.

To console you Notre Dame fans after last weekend's massacre, perhaps we could revisit an old Onion article: The present isn't looking so hot, but there is always the past to improve.

Lessons from the desperate

Word to the wise: If you are going to hire a hit man to kill your estranged wife, make sure he doesn't write your name and phone number in his dayplanner and leave it at the crime scene, just in case the wife strangles him with her bare hands. Oh, and maybe pick a bigger hit man.

Fresh mountain spring kitten

Sorry for all the catblogging--I just thought this was pretty funny. Carissa took a bottle out of the pack of water and Puck felt like he belonged in its place.

The end of a Texas story

Former Texas Governor Ann Richards Died last night. While probably I would have disagreed with Richards's politics, there was just a moxy about her that you have to kinda like. I mean, what's not cool about a grandma that takes up Harley-riding just for something new and fun? My grandfather used to tell me he buried her cat a long time ago. I would like to have met her.

And the winner is...

Puck!

Honorable mentions to Hamlet (for the slight bipolarity) and Paris (for the tendency to go for my Achilles tendon). Thanks for all who gave great suggestions. I wish I had enough kittens to use them all. Puck just fits this guy's personality really well--he's such a mischievous little imp, but it's all innocent fun.

Sidebar changes

Welcome to the sidebar Digital Eagle, the fledgling blog of my brother. Caution: References to computer programming may be interspersed with the content. Side effects may include nausea, panic, and coma. If you are prone so such reactions, please consult your physician before visiting. As for me, I'm willing to accept the risk.

Note to faithful readers: Barely Legal has been removed because it is no longer funny. Its owners have graduated from law school and now post only occational whinings about how they never do anything useful. We apologize if you miss it and suggest Homestarrunner as an alternative.

Name the kitten contest

Kitten's favorite activities include pouncing on anything that does or doesn't move (partial to feet), looking behind the mirror for evil twin, chasing his tail, and falling asleep on your keyboard or textbook while you are trying to work. He reminds me a bit of Peekaboo from the comic strip Rose is Rose. Current names under consideration:

1. Hamlet
2. Oberon
3. Agent Orange
4. Westlaw
5. Puck
6. Tango
7. The Snort
8. Lexis
9. Darcy
10. Cheeto
11. Jefferson
12. Quincy
13. Mephibosheth
14. Caffeine
15. Neko (Japanese for "cat")
    

The day that Dairy Queen saved

Today was just one of those days... Not that everyone was out to get me or anything--it was more like I was out to get myself. It was the usual little hassles, nothing big. Just the kinds of little things that add up and make you want to write the day off as a deduction from your total. Things like waiting through the light twice, being a touch late to class, getting called on when you picked up the wrong textbook, getting confused about which lane you need to be in at the next light, having your interior door handle spontaneously break so you have to crawl over the console and exit the car through the passenger door, driving all over town because you can't find a certain store, and then finding that the advertised special ended a half hour before you got there... So on the way home it was late and I was hungry and a touch crabby, so I pulled around the Dairy Queen with low expectations. I used to like Dairy Queen. It always had this basket of chicken fingers on the menu that came with fries and toast and the very definition of sawmill gravy--you know, the kind with waaaaay too much black pepper. I would dip everything in that gravy, even the toast. But I hadn't seen that on the menu for years and considered it gone with black-and-white television shows. But what do you know, they had it! And the gravy was just as I remember it. Ah, my arteries, this day has been redeemed.

I'm it.

Not fair, Monica! You took a lot of my answers! (And they blame mass culture on television...)

1. One book that changed your life: Isaiah
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Pride and Prejudice
3. One book you’d want on a desert island [at law school]: Norton's Anthology of Poetry
4. One book that made you laugh: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
5. One book that made you cry: Cry, the Beloved Country
6. One book that you wish had been written: How to Find Time to Write Fiction and Poetry in Law School and Get It Published
7. One book you wish had never been written: Ayn Rand's Fountainhead
8. One book you’re currently reading: Federal Income Taxation, by Klein et al.
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: One Hundred Years of Solitude
10. Now tag five people:

Brian
Carissa
Monkey Lung
Kristin
Ashley

The birds of the field...

were not toiling or spinning on Labor Day. They were munching on the Nyjer seed we provided. Mmmm!

Explaining marriage stats

I'm looking at an interesting graph on page 18 of Promises to Keep (ed. by Popenoe et al.) in an article called "Values, Attitudes, and the State of American Marriage" by Norval D. Glenn. The graph plots percentages of people 18 and older who are unmarried, happily married, and unhappily married between the years 1973 and 1993. I'm not sure what I expected, but the percentage of those unhappily married is a pretty straight line, with happily married decreasing and unmarried increasing. This could mean a couple things. First, it could mean marriages are no more or less happy than they ever were; just fewer people are trying it. This doesn't work in my mind because if that were the case the unhappily married line would be going down too. Second, marriages overall are unhappier (or unhappy marriage is easier to get out of with no-fault divorce), so more people are getting out of them. Once again, though, you'd think the unhappily married line would go down. Could it be that all the well-adjusted people who would be good candidate for happy marriages are finding other things to do (like pursue careers or higher education)? I don't know, just trying to figure out the graph. It would be helpful if they would break down the "unmarried" line into "never married" and "formerly married." That might shed some light on what's going on.

Just a spoonful of sugar

I need to post this for my avatar.