This is awesome. Go University of Illinois Law!

When Law School Dean Heidi Hurd balked on accepting the applicant in April 2006, Herman replied that the request came "Straight from the G. My apologies. Larry has promised to work on jobs (5). What counts?"

Hurd replied: "Only very high-paying jobs in law firms that are absolutely indifferent to whether the five have passed their law school classes or the Bar."

And here is a link to the emails produced pursuant to FOIA. They are equally awesome. The best quotes I've found so far:

Yea, I'm betting the Governorship will be open. One of them can have that job. Other jobs in Govenrment are fine, since kids who don't pass the bar and can't think are close enough for government work. UNIVER000012

I apologize for the bluntness of this email, but we are setting this young man up to fail. His GPA in his junior year was [redacted]. His GPA in his first semester of his senior year was a [redacted]. There is no track record of success and when he is faced with the rigor of our program there is aboslutely no reason to expect anything other than failure. UNIVER000016

We watched bits and pieces of four fairly awful movies this weekend.

The first movie was probably the worst. It was The Happening, the M. Night Shyamalan movie widely recognized as unwatchable. The plot is this - some plants release a neurotoxin that makes people kill themselves in particularly gruesome ways. For example, one guy turns on an industrial lawnmower and then lays down in front of it, a bunch of people hang themselves from trees, etc. Apparently, the plants are doing this because they are threatened by our existence, which I guess is some sort of environmental warning to humanity.

I thought the movie was supposed to be a horror movie, but it also tries to add in humor and a love story. Basically, if you had shown me the movie (and I had never heard of it) I would have guessed that WWE studios produced it. And this doesn't even get into the ton of plot holes and plainly nonsensical things that occur. Grade: Epic Fail

The next stellar production was Jumper. In this insult to human intelligence, some people are apparently born with the ability to teleport themselves anywhere they want. The protagonist has this ability, and he uses it to rob banks, have sex with hot girls, and generally be an ass. On the other side of the coin is Samuel L. Jackson, who as a "Paladin" hunts and kills these people because he believes that they all turn bad eventually.

So you probably see the problem - there's nobody to root for. Or, if you're going to root for anyone, its Jackson and the Paladins, although its clear that they are not the good guys. When you combine this strange setup with the... I won't call them plot holes, but there are so many things that just do not make sense at even the most basic level, you have an abomination of a movie. At one point, two of the teleporters are fighting each other, and they transport themselves to Chechnya. There is a war going on there, complete with soldiers and tanks firing at people. Curiously, the soldiers COMPLETELY IGNORE THE TWO PEOPLE WHO TELEPORTED INTO THEIR BATTLEFIELD! This leaves the "hero" to throw or teleport the other one into an electric tower thing. Stupid. Grade: Another Epic Fail

The Assassination of Jesse James never really had a chance. It clocked in at 2.5 hours, and we couldn't understand half of what they were saying. We turned it off after a half hour. Maybe it got better but I don't know, so this was probably the "best" of the bunch. Grade: Too Boring

Lastly, we had Doomsday, which you probably have never heard of. The plot is somewhat interesting in a Resident Evil ripoff kind of way. Scotland gets infected by a virus that kills or will kill everyone. As a response, Britain builds a giant wall to prevent the Scottish from bringing the virus into Britain. For 25 years or so, this works fine, until the virus reaches Britain on its own. The Prime Minister reveals that one of the satellites that has been focused on Glasgow has identified a couple people moving around, meaning there are survivors somehow! Thus, a crack team of soldiers must be sent in to try to find a cure before all of Britain succumbs to the virus.

Despite the fact that the satellite has only recently picked up human life in the Glasgow area, when the team of soldiers arrives, approximately one billion angry Scottish people are there. They attack and capture the soldiers, killing them in some pretty gruesome ways. And then... you know, I can't describe the rest of this movie in any detail. It somehow involves a sort of rock concert, and then a group of people who live in a medivial castle, ride horses, and wear armor, and lastly a car chase that culminates in a bentley driving through a bus (set up as a roadblock) with basically no damage. This movie was awful, but somehow not as bad as Jumper or The Happening. Grade: Fail.

This past Sunday we went to the Big Apple BBQ Block Party at Madison Square Park, and it was pretty awesome. As someone who does enjoy consuming various pig parts, it was a no-brainer to attend.

There were 15 different BBQ places, each serving one particular dish, be it ribs, pulled pork, brisket, etc. Due to the long lines and the fact that Kim made me eat most of her food after she nibbled one bite from her sandwich / ribs / brisket, I sampled four places:

We first hit up Big Bob Gibson's Bar-B-Q. Hailing from Decatur, AL, Big Bob served up pulled pork shoulder sandwiches with spicy southern mustard cole slaw. I ignored the slaw (as I did all day), and went straight for the pulled pork. It was probably the best pulled pork I've had in a long time, maybe ever. There isn't much more to say about it; if they return next year I'll be there. A great start to the day. Grade: A

As I am a brisket man, Gibbs recommended we go to The Salt Lick BBQ, from Driftwood, TX. He said he had some very good brisket from Hill Country the day before, but The Salt Lick's lines were insane on Saturday and they ran out of food in the middle of the day. So we tried The Salt Lick, which served up a couple slices of brisket on some wonder bread, a big slice of sausage, and the ever present cole slaw.

I was disappointed - the brisket was dry and not too flavorful. It needed some more fat, like the brisket at Fette Sau. The sausage was good, but sausage is always good. It could have been Hillshire Farm sausage and I wouldn't have known. A shame, it took up valuable stomach space. Grade: C-

Having tried brisket and pulled pork, I was in the mood for some ribs. We headed to Baker's Ribs from Dallas, TX, as Gibbs said they were the best he had the day before. They were St. Louis style ribs with a dry rub. That's generally how I like my ribs, but they had plenty of sauce in dispensers to suit other people's needs. The ribs were served with a very hot jalapeno cole slaw, which basically combines the two things I hate most in the world.

The ribs were tender and had a lot of kick to them. Luckily, Kim only had one of her three ribs, which meant I got 5. I pounded those down very quickly and was very happy with Gibbs's ribs call. Grade: A-

We were pretty full at this point, or at least I was, as I had eaten the equivalent of 5 plates of BBQ in around an hour and a half. So we relaxed and had some beers in the beer garden, then met up with Ben, Kate, Hayes, Ann, Laura, and the newest edition to the Elliott family, Mork the 2 pound puppy that Ben carries around in his bowling ball bag. At this point lines were getting pretty long and we were getting tired. However, it was getting late in the day, and my hunger was returning. I wanted more.

It was about this time when Kim tried to use a porta-potty, looked down into the toilet, saw some "stuff" she didn't like, and then ran out of the porta-potty and booted in the street.

So after that debacle we went to Hill Country to get that famous brisket. Unfortunately, we were met with disappointment, as they were out of food. It was like 3:30 PM and they were done. And it looked like a lot of the other vendors were in the same position.

We headed back to the area where the NYC BBQ places were stationed. Dinosaur, Blue Smoke, and Rack and Soul seemed to have food. We got in line at Rack and Soul, mainly because they served beans with their ribs, and Kim really wanted beans. The line wasn't too bad either, and while we were waiting I actually got this picture taken with the Pork Queen of Iowa. Awesome!

After a few minutes, we got to the front of the line, only to find out they were out of beans! Disaster! But what were we going to do, not get the ribs? So we got them (no discount on the cost of the plate, but maybe they gave us an extra rib instead, not sure) and headed to an empty picnic table. I took a bite.

Man.

These were the best ribs I've ever tasted. Its hard to describe just what made them so awesome. But we all agreed. I started looking at Kim's platter, but sadly she was plowing through the ribs just as fast as I was. Too bad for me. But we're going to try to head to this place on Saturday (its up in Morningside Heights), where I'll get a full rack all to myself. I can't wait. Grade: A+

Obviously, if you are in NYC next year, you should hit this BBQ-fest up.

I find this article hilarious (it is about a community bank that failed in a spectacular manner), but I doubt it was written for its comedic value.

Some awesome quotes:

Tina Gasner took out a $260,000 loan from New Frontier two years ago to fulfill her dream of running a restaurant based on family recipes like Awesome Artichoke Dip Pizza. She says the loan officer raved about her business plan -- but she now believes she had too little cash on hand to weather a downturn and too little collateral to justify so much debt.

"I'm an accountant," Ms. Gasner says. "I'm not stupid. But you're in a place of trust when you approach a bank, when they're saying, 'This is a good plan, you'll make a profit.' That's why I went forward."

In an interview, Mr. Seastrom says all loans met strict underwriting standards and were fully documented. But he acknowledges taking risks other banks wouldn't. That was a point of pride at New Frontier. "We tried to help people," he says. "We tried to find a way to do things."

For example, he says, the bank didn't automatically turn away applicants with shaky credit scores or recent bankruptcies. Mr. Seastrom let small businessmen take out loans against assets that other bankers considered marginal, such as tables and chairs.

It makes me think of this article from The Onion:

Ridiculous Small-Business Plan Encouraged By Friends

Almost a Movie Review: The Hangover



I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical when the posters and billboards for The Hangover started popping up. I'm not really sure why. But for whatever reason I wasn't in a huge rush to see the movie.

The reviews started coming out and they were surprisingly good. This caused me a bit of confusion. Then Gibbs and Sarah apparently said it was pretty good as well. The wheels were turning. Maybe I should see this thing.

So after debating between ordering Gran Turino or going to Kips Bay to see The Hangover, I (yes, I, Kim refused to make a decision) decided we would go see the movie.

The movie was actually pretty great. Sure, it had its swings and misses, but for the most part the funny bits work. I won't spoil any of the parts, since surprise is one of the key ingredients to its humor, but the funniest part for me involved a slow motion scene of a fat kid confronting Zach Galifianakis. I thought Ed Helms and Galifianakis were pretty awesome and made the movie what it is, while Bradley Cooper was meh for the most part. Heather Graham still looks incredible at 39, and is not opposed to showing a little nip, although its not in the context that you want it.

Last night, Kim asked me to name any funnier movies I'd seen. I said that I thought Old School was funnier. Probably Talledega Nights. Maybe The Waterboy, but those were all I could really think of. If The Hangover is up there with those movies, I think you owe it to yourself to give it a shot.

Here are the wedding pics from our photographer. Some of them are pretty sweet.

Here are some reviews of video games I've played recently:

Mirror's Edge



The concept of the game is very cool. It is a first person game where the point is to run parkour style through a city of the future. It takes some getting used to, but the execution of the game is pretty sweet. You run with the left stick, and look / steer with the right stick. The left trigger moves you down (slide / duck), the left bumper moves you up (jump / climb), and the right trigger hits things. It is fairly intuitive, yet the scheme leaves open a lot of possibilities, including 360 degree wall jumps and other nifty maneuvers.

There are guns, but the game is very beatable without ever using them to kill anyone (and there is an achievement for this). There is also a storyline, but the game is also fairly beatable without really paying attention to it. That's part of the problem - most of the time you're running to get to a particular spot, but you can't for the life of you remember why you're going there.

There are time trial and speed run modes too, which are pretty fun, albeit frustrating. The game can actually be EXTREMELY frustrating at times, especially during the limited combat. Still, the game is worth a rental, just because it is so different from almost every other game out there. And it is pretty fun for the most part.


Punch Out



I remember Punch Out for the NES. I got to Mike Tyson and could never beat him. It was one of the few games I just gave up on. I did eventually beat Super Punch Out for the SNES, which was a bit more forgiving. Those were the days.

Ever ready to use nostalgia to its advantage, Nintendo has released Punch Out for the Wii, to almost universal praise. The gameplay is more similar to the NES version than the SNES, with your simple jabs and star punch uppercuts. However, and you'll find this out rather quickly, the gameplay is more than just dodge and punch. Well, it actually is that, but the dodging is much more complicated.

Whereas in NES Punch Out you could say, dodge any punch by dodging left at a certain time, the opponents on the Wii now are quite tricky. Sometimes they will move as if they are going to punch, and then delay it a second... hitting you right when you come back from your ill-timed dodge. Or sometimes they swing such that you can only dodge in a particular direction. This is actually quite tricky and frustrating. After losing a fair amount of times you can figure it out (and there is an exhibition mode for you to practice), but beating any fighter on your first try from the mid-point on, is a spicy proposition at best.

The game is a blast from the past and if you have a Wii, it is certainly a worthy addition to your game library.


Resident Evil 5



This is your standard RE game (shoot zombies while standing still, run short on ammo, consume herbs, etc.) with a twist. You have a partner. And they made her a looker. In fact, one of the first scenes from the game is of her ass.

Unfortunately, she is fairly infuriating as a partner. On the one hand, she is basically invulnerable in most parts of the game. Like during boss fights. In other parts, she will basically kill herself. I actually watched her walk into a furnace at one point in my game (okay, there were some conveyor belts moving, but she didn't exactly try to avoid the furnace they were moving towards). And her use of ammunition isn't ideal either.

There are parts where it works out pretty well. Sometimes you have to cover each other, and other points require different types of teamwork. One wonders though, just how many doors require two people to push two different buttons at the same time. If only other video game villains had known this simple trick! Just place two buttons on opposite sides of the room, and the solitary hero will never be able to unlock the door to move on!

Overall, it is an interesting idea, but I don't think it panned out all that well. The fact that I can go down to essentially zero life an infinite amount of times, only to have my partner "revive" me with a shot of something, takes some of the thrill out of the game. Its fun to play because it is RE, but its no RE4.

I've spent enough time in NYC to now have a list of restaurants in my mind that I can take people. You want good Italian? Via Emilia. Get the tortelli alla panna. You want good Vietnamese? Xe Lua in Chinatown on Mulberry Street for the best pho in town. You want the best cheesesteaks? 99 Miles to Philly. Easy enough.

But the best BBQ is always a topic of hot debate. And I guess it is partly a matter of preference.

Ben and Gibbs swear by Dinosaur BBQ up in Harlem. Chances are approximately 40% that if you see Ben outside of work, he's wearing a Dinosaur BBQ shirt. I've gone a few times - it is almost always packed, but... brace yourselves, I've never been wowed by the place. Maybe its that I don't prefer wet bbq - I'm more of a dry rub guy. Or that I'm not a big wings and ribs man - brisket is my preferred meat. But my fondest memory of Dinosaur BBQ isn't really the food, its Gibbs accidentally dropping a shrimp into a pitcher of beer, and then drinking the rest of the shrimpy beer as a penalty.

So this past weekend Gibbs and Sarah convinced me and Kim to go into Brooklyn to go to a beer garden and then to Fette Sau. The beer garden was alright - we played 99 (during which a wasted Sarah put down an 8 on a total of like 67 and proclaimed 95!!!) and mushroom with some decent beers, but the real treat was waiting for us.

You walk down a somewhat narrow alley of picnic tables to get into Fette Sau. The line wasn't too bad when we got there, but as the night progressed it got obnoxiously long. As we waited in line, we figured out the ordering process.

There are meats, and you order them by the quarter pound. You also order sides. It is all then plopped onto a tray that has a piece of white butcher paper on it. You don't get any plates. Then you carry your tray away to an open picnic table. No waiters, no fuss.

Kim and I ordered a half pound of brisket, a half pound of ribs, some baked beans, and some extra spicy habanero potato chips. Lets get the chips out of the way first - they were probably the spiciest thing I've ever eaten, and I only had like a half of one. I never want to get within 50 yards of one of those again.

The baked beans were downright awesome. You could taste the bacony goodness in them, and I dipped the potato rolls in the sauce pretty much continuously. I'd order them again in a second.

The ribs were up my alley. Not too tender, but tender enough so you don't leave any meat on the bones. It was a dry rub, so it wasn't messy, and it tasted great. I don't have any other adjectives to describe it, because I was somewhat buzzed at this point.

I wasn't so full of alcohol, however, that I could not remember in all its glory the brisket. The brisket was the best brisket I had ever eaten. It was very fatty - I had to actually leave chunks of fat on the tray, but I guess that is what made it so damn good. I would slice off a piece of meat and then add a little of the fat and BOOM, flavor explosion. This is how brisket should be done. We should have gotten a full pound of it. I seriously contemplated ordering a pound to take home, but the line was too long at that point.

Also, Dave ordered the pork cheeks. These looked like oval shaped hunks of charred flesh. We debated whether the cheeks came from the face of the pig, or whether they came from the ass. Kim was clearly advocating the ass side of the argument. One thing we could agree on was that these things were absolutely phenomenal, tasting pretty much like no other meat I've ever had. These are a must order.

As for alcohol, you go up to the bar and order one of 8 varieties of beer. You can get it in either pints, quarts, half gallons, or gallons. I got a half-gallon of Sixpoint Righteous Rye for $18.00, which I found to be very reasonable. They give you jam jars to drink out of, which I think is a nice touch.

Gibbs is convinced that this guy was there too. I had never heard of him, but I hadn't heard of that Samberg guy so who knows.

Overall, I think Fette Sau is the best BBQ place I've been to in the area. Again, I'm a brisket man, but the brisket, cheeks, and beans will make this place stand out in my mind for a long time. Its worth the trip to Brooklyn, and that's really saying something since I hate going further than 20 blocks from Midtown.