Sometimes it is difficult to explain why I hate Joe Morgan (the broadcaster) so much. People ask me all the time when I'm wearing the above shirt, and I generally reply that if they have to ask, I'm not really going to be able to explain it particularly well. Which is a total cop out of an answer. So let me try to explain at least why I, in particular, cannot stand him.

Generally, when a person holds an outright incorrect view of reality, they are punished for it. If I think that I am the best poker player at the table and I am in fact the worst, barring some extremely fortunate flops, I will lose all my money. If I think the statute of limitations on a claim is 1 year but is in fact 6 months, I'll probably be sued for malpractice. If I am stranded on a lifeboat and I believe that salt-water will in fact quench my thirst, I will die that much quicker.

This is really the key to the character that is Joe Morgan. More often than not he is demonstrably wrong in what he disseminates to the public as "expert" baseball knowledge. Lets put aside the relative merits of sabermetric baseball analysis (although this is a man who stated that "you can't compare things with statistics.") This is someone who totally made up a story about how he was critical to the Phillies collapse of 1964. This is someone, who in this past Sunday's broadcast of the Tigers / Angels game, stated that Justin Verlander (the starting pitcher for the Tigers) struck out Curtis Granderson (the leadoff hitter for the Tigers) with a curveball.

Two things wrong with that.

1) You can't strike out your own team's leadoff hitter.
2) If he was referring to Verlander striking out Chone Figgins, the leadoff hitter of the Angels, it was with a 97 mph fastball. The strikeout on a curveball came against Vladimir Guerrero. This occurred in the first inning of the game.

Now you may say I'm nitpicking, but this stuff happens almost every time he speaks. He even got into a story later in the broadcast where he directly contradicted himself at least twice. He was talking about hitting in front of Johnny Bench, and how if he got on he would give Bench a couple pitches to hit before trying to steal second. He then ended his anecdote with something like, "Because Johnny knew that I would be gone by the second pitch." It was thoroughly confusing and Jon Miller had nothing to say at that point. I guess he's just used to it.

So there are plenty of bad broadcasters out there. Why focus on Morgan? First, because he's the most prominent. And second, because he is consistently rewarded for his idiocy! He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a broadcaster and also has won an Emmy. HOW????

When you are consistently wrong, how can you be rewarded? It is as if the normal laws of causality do not apply to him. Instead of losing all his money, he is given lucrative contracts. Instead of being fired for incompetence, he is praised as brilliant. And instead of having his broadcasting career cut short with every moronic word or phase uttered out of his mouth, it is instead given that much more longevity by the fools who eat it up. This is what makes the whole situation infuriating.

The best analogy may be to the Simpsons episode entitled "Homer's Enemy." In that episode, Frank Grimes gets a job at the nuclear power plant, and he is amazed at how Homer has a job. He becomes infuriated to see that Homer's incompetence is overlooked by his coworkers, boss, and the rest of Springfield. Eventually, Grimes goes crazy and ends up killing himself while trying to imitate Homer.

Hmm, thats not a good ending for me.

Massively hung over on Sunday morning from Foxfield (which was awesome), I came to an extremely painful realization as I stood in the shower.

My scalp was badly sunburned.

I had unwisely buzzed my hair earlier in the week. On the morning of Foxfield, I put sunblock on my face, but neglected to do so on my largely exposed scalp. After six hours of drinking in the hot sun, I was not in ideal shape. I noticed my nose was red, but didn't think much of the top of my head.

So when the hot water started pouring over my hair the next morning, I felt one of the more painful sensations I had in quite awhile. I guess this is just a lesson to everyone - if you buzz your hair, don't go to an all-day drinking event in the bright sun. Well, scratch that. Do go to the event, but wear a hat or something.

Ann was nice enough to get me a free ticket to last night's black tie sumo exhibition at John Paul Jones Arena. It was a charity event for Ronald McDonald House, and included an open bar and dinner.

I got to see Manny Yarbrough, a 6'8", 675 pound sumo wrestler hailing from New Jersey. Warning - that pic might scare you a little bit. He kind of got wailed on by all the other sumos though.

Two highlights:

1) John Grisham and some other guy were the hosts for the live auction, and someone offered them $10,000 if they both would wrestle Manny Yarbrough (at the same time presumably). One of them replied - I'll pay $10,000 to not have to do it!

2) The auction for the "Wrestle a Sumo Tonight" thing was won by this "large" red headed younger woman. After her bid won, she immediately got out of her chair, and in her dress mind you, dropped into a sumo stance. She lifted one leg up and then stomped it on the ground. Unfortunately, Berde and I were two tables away. We were unable to avert our eyes and are now scarred for life.

Quick quiz:

You live in New York City or some area that does not have Chic-fil-a. You are presented the opportunity on the way to a wedding to eat Chic-fil-a for the first time in a long while.

What do you order? (There most certainly is a wrong answer, but possibly multiple correct ones.)

Random Law School Memories of 1L Year:

*Immediately after our Con Law exam, Ryan and I made a beeline for the liquor store. We both knew we bombed it. By the time the rest of the section got back to Ryan's apartment, we were both pretty liquored up.

Our initial thoughts on how we did turned out to be correct. I got the same grade as someone who did not notice the 3rd page of a 3 page exam.

*I don't remember how it started, but the "Old Man Berde" song came into existence one night while playing speed quarters. If Berde got passed three times, the whole room would break out in song.

Old Man Berde ain't what he used to be
Ain't what he used to be
Ain't what he used to be
Old Man Berde ain't what he used to be
He's just too damn old!!

It got to the point that whenever we played, you could feel the tension building. Berde would be passed once. Twice. Come on! Come on!! Sometimes it would happen, and sometimes it wouldn't. But when it did, it was sure great.

*For a reason I can't seem to articulate, one of the funniest moments of my law school life happened on the day before our first day of classes. Our section was gathered in a classroom and given name cards and a packet of information. I was sitting next to Alec.

The name card was about the size of a normal piece of paper, but made of a sturdy cardboard. It had some lines on it indicating where to fold it to make it stand up on its own. Alec had somehow folded the stupid thing diagonally. It was quite a sight to see. After seeing him struggle with it for a minute or so, I snatched it out of his hand and shaped it correctly.

*During the 1L tournament, we annihilated every other section. In the championship game, our team started with what must have been 9 straight hits. Then I came up. For the only time in my law school softball career, I struck out. It was awful. The first pitch was called a strike and the second one was some weird curveball thing that I wasn't quite prepared for. And of course, Kim was there to witness the debacle.

*We had torts on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays at 3 PM. It was terrible. The last obstacle of the day was almost always the most annoying. at 2:45 PM on one magical Thursday, we got an email saying torts was canceled. That had to have been one of the happiest days of the year.

*Me and a couple guys created a "fantasy law review" pool. We each put in a small amount of money and drafted people from our section. The winner would be the individual who had the most people on law review. The pool became moot when our section placed nobody on law review. Quite the feat actually.

A few weeks ago, Kim asked me if a pair of viagra boxer shorts was something I'd be interested in.

You mean, do I want what would clearly be the greatest pair of boxer shorts ever made? Of course I want them!!!!

I was at the dollar store tonight, and I just couldn't stop laughing after seeing this:



It even comes with a straw to inflate it (because holding onto it is far too dangerous)!

This should be a busy weekend.

1) 266 miles NE to Cinnaminson
2) 70 miles SW to Atlantic City to dominate the Borgata and Tropicana
3) 70 miles NE to Cinnaminson to return with our massive winnings
4) 50 miles N to Kendall Park to get Kim
5) 10 miles S to Princeton to get Sarah and Gibbs
6) 73 miles SW to Wilmington, DE to get wasted at Kate and Tom's wedding
7) 73 miles NE to Princeton to drop off Sarah and Gibbs
8) 10 miles N to Kendall Park to celebrate Emma's first birthday, hopefully with lots of wild boar to eat
9) 50 miles SW to Cinnaminson to sleep
10) 266 miles SW to Charlottesville to begin my last week of law school classes ever

I caught a nasty adware last Wednesday night. I wasn't even around my computer. I came back to my computer to find my anti-virus auto-protect going crazy. It wasn't going crazy enough, as some very suspicious "spyware program" had installed itself into my system tray.

I deleted that stuff as best I could. I then checked out my system processes and found multiple copies of processes running - never a good sign. I spent the next 3 hours running full system scans, rebooting, and looking through my registry. I went to the symantec web support and it told me to disable system restore, as that can protect some of the adware files from being deleted during the system scan. It was 2 AM and I was groggy. I disabled system restore, which deleted all my saved restore points.

Probably a mistake.

The next day I booted up my computer in class. It clearly had too many things running in the background (including four instances of "svchost.exe." I decided to boot up in safe mode just so I could at least open up word and take notes. But then I realized that my computer beeps really loudly to let you know its in safe mode. (Thanks, I didn't realize I had hit F8 during start up and then selected which version of safe mode I wanted. I needed that beep to really let me know.)

So I picked up my laptop and left in the middle of class. I eventually realized that I was going to have to reinstall windows. But Dell never gave me an installation CD. How do I reinstall windows without a CD?

I did a little searching on the intertubes and found out that when you don't get a CD, the manufacturer will usually place the installation files on a partition of your hard drive. I confirmed that this was in fact the case, and then went through the task of trying to invoke this reinstallation.

My first plan was to try to go through one of the setup screens. Both F2 and F12 seemed like good options. Neither worked. So I had to do more intertube searching. And eventually I found it.

I needed to hold Ctrl and then hit F11 during my startup screen.

Obviously.

I backed up my photos and law school stuff and restored my computer to its factory original state. The whole process only took a couple hours, and most of that time was simply uninstalling all the crappy stuff (AOL, Wordperfect, Musicmatch, etc.) that came with the computer in the first place. But by the middle of the day on Thursday, I had a working computer in basically pristine condition.

And then, during a party at our house the very next night, some tool went into my room (while I was playing beer pong) and decided he wanted to show someone the two girls one cup video. So he installed Limewire, appropriate codecs, and then downloaded the video.

Who does that?

The funny / sad thing is, if I were on the golf course and given the option between regular gatorade and gatorade Tiger, I'd go for the latter.

This past Thursday we did the Law Vets 5k Fun / Drunk Run. Basically, you run to five different bars and do a shot or beer at each bar. I was told it would be a great time, so I said what the heck and signed up. We all did and tried to dress appropriately ridiculous, with headbands, wristbands, and bicep bands.

Making matters more complicated was the weather. As I drove to school that morning, there was freezing rain falling from the sky. It warmed up just enough to unfreeze that rain by the start of the 5k. So we were running in 40 degree rain.

And I had never run more than 2 miles at one time in my life. Even when I was in shape back in high school, I was never a long distance runner. The day had all the makings of a disaster.

A big FU must go out to the now defunct Orbit, which volunteered to give us drinks for the run, then closed down the day before. Also, an FU to Mellow Mushroom, whose owner apparently bought Orbit and refused to give us the drinks that Orbit had promised us. An additional FU goes out to Baja Bean, which did not give us free drinks even though we asked nicely. These three bar/restaurants all hate freedom and tried to let the terrorists win. But one place would have none of it. Wild Wing Cafe gave us an additional beer to make up for the one we missed at Orbit / Mellow Mushroom / Baja Bean. Wild Wing Cafe, I salute you.

We persevered and made it through the tough times, arriving at South Street Brewery in record time. For some reason, Andy, Rob, and Berde took their shirts off for the last part of the run.







My legs still hurt, but its a good kind of hurt. And we didn't let the terrorists win.

While we were rehearsing for Ben and Kate's wedding, the scariest wedding planner woman in the world informed us groomsmen that two of us would have to carry a "vessel" to the front of the room at the start of the wedding. We were told that the vessel would be made of metal, have handles, and be full of roses that guests put into it. The terrifying woman then asked who are the two who should bring it up.

Everyone volunteered me for some reason.

Then, to increase the potential for hilarity, Gibbs got the other nomination.

So we prepared for our critical role. The vessel had not yet arrived, but we rehearsed carrying the imaginary thing up to the front of the ceremony. Seemed easy enough.

The next day, we arrived early at the country club for the actual ceremony. And that is when Gibbs and I saw the thing.

It was indeed made of metal. It had no handles. And it was the definition of cumbersome. It just looked heavy. So we gave it a test pickup.

It must have weighed in the 40-50 pound range. Various people tried moving it and were amazed at how dense this thing was. And this was while it was empty! 200 roses or so would probably add a bit more weight. And possibly a thorn could prick me, causing me to lose my grip.

I began to play out the various scenarios in my head of what happened if we actually dropped the thing. Option one, and probably the best option, would be to run away out of the country club, catch a cab to the airport, and never be seen in Cincinnati again. Option two... I wasn't quite sure. Picking up the roses off the ground? I had no idea.

Ben warned me that approximately 7 people would be ready to stab me if I did in fact drop it. I took the threat very seriously.

We took a practice run before guests arrived. It went okay, although a little water spilled out of the bottom of it. This is what happens when one guy carrying it is 5'6" and the other is 6'.

As we escorted guests to the seats, it became apparent that some of them had not placed a rose into the vessel. We were told to ask them if they had, and if they had not, to direct them to do so before being seated. You can imagine what I did and did not do.

The wedding began and Gibbs and I readied ourselves. We looked at the vessel. It was backwards! The front side had something about Ben and Kate, and the back side had like the maker of the thing. The flower girl person had turned it around to give guests more room to put flowers in. Our entire plan was now in shambles! What would we do?

Well, winners adjust. We came up with a new plan on the fly. We're just that good.





As we walked down the aisle, I had a ninja death grip on the thing. We got halfway down the aisle when a distinctive laugh rang out through the crowd. Fishman. Cracking up. Trying to rattle us. Then suddenly Jake stepped in front of us. Also trying to rattle us. But in the words of a famous craps player, "You can't ice the iceman!" We got it up there with no problem and ran away quickly. Victory.