...and a song.

On the heels of my petty whining about professional responsibility, the song (slightly paraphrased due to my poor memory) that was the one thing I got to do in my 1L-year Libel Show:
(to the tune of "Coney Island Baby." Sing along!)
Professional Responsi-bi-li-ty,
What I like to call P.R. (P.R. for lawyers);
Give me some Model Rules to fo-ol-low,
Like not soliciting and (never can solicit any)
Priv'lege and confidenti-a-li-ty,
What is the diff'rence 'tween the two? (The two)
So don't steal,
Don't cheat,
Don't like a scandal; (do doo)
So Professional (do doo)
I can be ethical (do doo)
Ethical professional too-oo!

Amen.

Dave Foley really does know funny, Libelous thoughts, other notes

I watched both premiere episodes of Thank God You're Here last night, which you can waste up to two hours watching at the link just provided. It's far too early to tell whether I should be embarrassed at having watched it. But I thought it was mildly entertaining--a really interesting premise that would be more interesting with better celebrities/comics involved (Joel McHale, Kevin Nealon and Jennifer Coolidge were great; Richard Kind and Mo'Nique, not so much).

Here's the thing, though; the show co-stars one of my heroes, or rather a shockingly old-looking, wild-gray-haired-and-goateed imitation of one of my heroes, and it's kind of sad. Dave Foley, probably the most talented and consistently funny member of the excellent--nay, legendary--Kids in the Hall comedy troupe, is the "judge" of the program, which means that David Alan Grier asks Dave what he thinks about each performer, and that at the end Dave gets to pick the "winner" (who wins a little plastic trophy). But, at least for the first two episodes, what Dave "thought" was essentially that the performer was absolutely fantastic--just really great--and he then picked the "winner" seemingly at random.

This is a sad waste of a brilliant comic talent, and a man who, despite appearances, clearly does understand what is funny. Observe (less than a minute, PG, really funny):



My hope is that he's trying to be nice to everybody to encourage bigger and better stars to come on the show in the future, and that he'll start being more realistic if the show gets picked up. But you never know. I just really love this video (especially the end: "requests?"). I wish I could find a version that's not captioned in a language I don't recognize.

Other notes:

• -In leaving a comment on my own blog this morning (does it get any more self-indulgent than that?), I noticed that it said that anonymous comments are not allowed. That seems silly. So they're now allowed. Just not as enthusiastically encouraged as the alternative.


• -The leadership (er, "junta") for the 2008 Libel Show was elected last night. A little sad, since it's the very last time I can even pretend to be involved with the Show. Also, I've decided after experiencing it three times that the election process is about as poor as we could possibly make it. People are nominated or nominate themselves for a position, and speak for a minute or less about their qualifications, and then leave the room while the rest of us discuss their high and low points for something more like ten minutes before the vote takes place. This is supposed to be a secret thing; what is said in the room stays with the people in the room and so forth. Of course, UVA being what it is, with the Honor Code and whatnot, everyone finds out precisely what was said about her while she was out as soon as the meeting ends. So it's like this: there's all sorts of opportunity for people to make unfounded, often ridiculous accusations against a candidate (and that certainly happened last night); the candidate has no opportunity to defend herself, relying on her friends to do it for her, which often makes it a really awkward pissing match; and then afterward, the candidate hears all about it and can do nothing but get angry and/or feel sorry for herself. So 1Ls and 2Ls? Fix that. I'm not sure what the best way to do it is, but you could scarcely do worse.
  
  
• -I took my facebook badge off of the sidebar, because I decided there was a difference between being open and personal on the one hand and actively inviting identity theft on the other. But I also changed my facebook profile picture today, to the headshot that was taken of me for the lobby during the Show, and now you don't get to see it. So here it is:
  
  Terrifying, no? I should probably change the adjective in this blog's title. Nonetheless, I like it. It's probably my favorite bad picture of myself ever. And there have been so many.


• -The Twins did indeed lose last night, and Mr. Ponson didn't quite give up 25 runs, but he was good for 8 over 6 innings (though one who watched it much closer than I said he wasn't actually all that bad). Nonetheless, Ponson remains roughly as worthy of a rotation spot as I am.


• -I left my cell phone in my car. Be right back.
  


• -Back! But it turns out I've nothing left to say.

Not Dead Yet

This blog isn't, that is. I'm hoping this will be more than a once-a-week thing, perhaps starting as early as this week.

So the Show was last week, and was everything I'd hoped and then some. I got to make fun of Packer fans and dress up as a gender-bending glam rocker. See?



Oah, jeeze, come on in dere!

The girl in the upper picture is the makeup artist who did this horrible thing to me. Anyway, it was amazingly fun. Tickets sold well, and the show went over well. I was up until 3:30-5 am every night, and still kind of waiting to recover. You'd never believe how many talented and, especially, incredibly funny people you can find at a law school (or at least at UVA Law School). I'm going to miss it terribly, but looking forward to sitting and watching the whole thing next year (assuming I can escape the office for a day or two).

This weekend is the annual UVA Law Softball Tournament. Some 100 teams from other law schools come out to UVA for a weekend every year to, essentially, live like a Virginia law student and get soundly beaten by a Virginia law softball team. This is the first year that I'm "playing" in the tournament; I'm on the least competitive of our six teams and probably won't play in the field much, but it's exciting to be a part of it. I'll hope to check in over the weekend with photos and amusing anecdotes (there are many from the Libel Show, but I'm not sure which I can/should share).

To that end, true story: just a few short minutes ago (hey, I type fast), I was in class and was lectured on the dangers of maintaining a blog and facebook profile, because employers and such can see them. Which is, of course, a perfectly valid point (and a hearty hello to Prof. Morris, if she's reading this). It's a little scary. But, horrifying stage makeup aside, I don't think there's anything particularly controversial (or even, frankly, anything all that interesting to anyone but me) about all of this. I trust you to let me know immediately if that ever changes.

Finally, one more very funny/interesting thing I've found that is probably common knowledge among the general web-obsessed public but is brand new to me: OverheardInNewYork.com (as well as its companion sites, overheard at the beach and office). It's fascinating, and updated with astounding frequency. Enjoy!