Hey, Look at Me!

I’ve never done this before but since Energy Spatula, of Will Work For Favorable Dicta, a much more famous blog than my blog, “tagged” me with a meme, here goes:

Three things you didn’t know about me:

1. Despite my complaining I don’t hate law school and I’m not a bitter, grumpy, cynical and jaded old man. Not too much, anyway. I’m not saying I love law school but it’s a lot better than what I did in the nine months before coming to law school. Unfortunately it’s not better than what I did in the seven or so years before that nine months but I’m not going down memory lane here. But I have this blog not because I like to point out the failings of other people (specifically of this school, which so far has not failed me but I still don’t have a job, although I assume I will get one eventually) but because someone needs to call this place on some of the crap that goes on here. Sometimes, it even works. Or I like to think it does, anyway. Like the day after I blogged about the job posting for a job that requires only a high school education, the listing was taken down. No one told me I was responsible but I like to think I was. (It’s good for my ego). Over the summer in my previous blog, I complained about the fact that in one men’s room the urinal was a foot away from where you wash your hands. Soon after, a barrier showed up. Again, no one said they made the change because of me, but I can think so, right? Mostly though I view myself and this blog as a commentator and critic of the system. Just like critics criticize but don’t hate everything they see, neither do I. And I just don’t think anyone wants to read a blog about how wonderful things are about me, my life and this law school, like all the wonderful, um, uh, well, something must be wonderful about this place…

2. A lot of people were surprised when Indianapolis Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt missed a field goal last weekend that would have sent the Colts-Steelers playoff game into overtime and salvaged the Colts season, but I was not surprised. See, I have known for the past 10 years that Vanderjagt was not the superstar kicker everyone thought he was. In 1996, when I was a year out of college I was the PR guy for the Minnesota Fighting Pike, an Arena Football League team in Minneapolis that lasted one season before folding. (It was a fun job that paid very little but that was perfect for a 23-year-old with no clue what direction his career was going to take. I went on all the road trips and since virtually no media covered the team, I had more or less nothing to do, especially when we travelled. And I got a lot of free food since football players eat a lot - even Arena Football players.)Vanderjagt was the team’s kicker. He was a strange character on a team full of football rejects, retreads, has-beens and never-will-be’s. He stood out so much, in fact, that he was released two games into the season because he wasn’t good enough to hack it into the Arena Football League. That’s why I was surprised a few months (or a year or so?) later when he resurfaced in the Canadian Football League, then became the Colts standout kicker who for a few years was a lock from anywhere inside the 55-yard-line. Maybe my characterization is unfair – people change and people improve as they get older (especially kickers, who rarely succeed immediately after college) so the fact that he got cut from a two-bit minor league team in 1996 doesn’t mean he is a fraud. But still, I did not doubt something like this would happen.

3. I could eat dark chocolate three meals a day, seven days a week and never, ever get sick of it.