Bar dream.

I never remember dreams. I think the last one I remembered was when I was five, and I dreamed that I could fly, but that I couldn't fly above a certain altitude, which sort of sucked for getting away from bad guys who were chasing me. The altitude, see, was like 20 feet.

I just woke up from a nap. Apparently, I was dreaming that I studied a good solid 2 hours for the bar exam and felt pretty good about myself. Then I woke, realized that not only did I not study those 2 hours, but that I lost an hour taking a bloody nap.

Le sigh.

Pistons: In 6!

Wicked.

Since I'm studying for the bar, I haven't asked to have our cable reinstated. I basically have to "watch" the Celtics games on Yahoo with their 30 second refresh on. This is how I roll.

Bar/Bri: Day 2.

It's only day 2 and people's minds have already exploded. A friend of mine who is also taking the Massachusetts bar, but attending a different location of the Bar/Bri Massachusetts review than the one I'm attending relayed this story:

*My friend (deciding to be social) introduced herself to the person sitting next to her.*
*small talk*
Person sitting next to her: So what bar are you taking?
*beat*
My friend: Um. Massachusetts.
*My friend decides it's not worth being social.*

My first thought? Hells yeah. That's my competition!

UPDATE: I just noticed that the DVD that Bar/Bri sends out to all students misspelled "Introduction" as "Intoduction." At least we're all screwed.

Bar.

One of the worst kept secrets about law school is that law school doesn't actually prepare you for the bar exam, which is, you know, the main obstacle to actually becoming a lawyer. So, in an effort to extract ever more money from hapless students, about 1-2 weeks after you graduate from law school, you typically enroll in a private class designed specifically to teach the bar. Apparently the norm is to take Bar/Bri, which runs for about 7-8 weeks, with a PMBR supplement before and/or after the Bar/Bri classes. Both are exceedingly expensive classes.

In other words, what we thought we would learn over 3 "leisurely" years in law school, we actually learn in less than 2 months. To be fair, it is apparently common for Bar/Bri to actually clarify that which we learned during law school. For example, the counterpart to grand larceny is petit larceny, not petty larceny. More than 1 student, including yours truly, looked up from his notes and smiled at that little parting of the clouds.

For most jurisdictions, Bar/Bri and PMBR is the only game in town. So I have to entrust my future as a lawyer, in which I have already invested my left arm and my spiritual capacity for joy and forgiveness, to a private company that can't even spell "Massachusetts" correctly in their many emails to me. Pray for me.

Twenty-Eight and One.

A friend of mine was a little confused about the title of my blog because he wondered what would happen once my next birthday rolled around. Well, that was yesterday. And it was a good day. But I guess my intention was for my title to be a play on the phrases "thirtysomething" and "twentysomething," which basically just refer to anyone who is in their thirties or twenties. I'm in my twenty-eights in that this is when my blog started and because this is a pretty pivotal year for me as far as, you know, my life goes. I guess it doesn't make sense, but it was either this or "Middle Child Syndrome." And that didn't sound bloggy enough.

Duel.

Dunkin' Donuts coffee is better than Starbucks.
Chipotle is better than Qdoba.
Full episode updates are faster on CBS and ABC than CW and hulu.

Is librarything better than goodreads?

American Idol Finale: Cooked.

I can't help but wonder... did David Cook throw the finale? How did someone as savvy as him not pick one of his past buzzworthy songs? Why didn't he do Always Be My Baby? Or Billie Jean? The American Idol finale is made to disrupt any alternative singer. Bo Bice had no chance against Carrie Underwood. Blake Lewis had no chance against Jordin Sparks. On paper, I would have said that Cook had no chance against David Archuleta, but this season, time and again Cook managed to navigate the treacherous theme nights that by no right should a rocker have overcome. But even Andrew Lloyd Webber couldn't shut him down. Not even a bottom two scare. So it's hard for me to believe that Cook's decision to sing The World I Know instead of a repeat was anything but a calculated move.

Like Randy said, The World I Know is probably the exact type of song that Cook would actually release, and this season, Idol never allowed the contestants to choose their own. Remember: even in the semi-finals, the producers for some terrible reason imposed themes (The Beatles are good, but that was just a dumb, dumb move.). It seems like Cook was trying to tell everyone: I know I'm going to get a deal... this is what the record is going to sound like.

Not to take away from Archie, because the wunderkind was on tonight. He's never sung with such urgency (and, yes, grit) than when he sang Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me. And the little Furby even came close to tears! It's like... he's turning eighteen, and is finally a real boy! But really, in ANTM-speak, this is a sitch where Arch started the season strong, was sort of okay in the middle, and nailed the final exam. Cook was consistently brilliant, but had a good, but not great final.

I love AI, and for a moment, I thought Cook was going to take it. But in the end, Arch fits just a bit too perfectly into the key AI demographics, and he was just a bit too perfect tonight for Cook to handle. Arch is going to win.

Cavs.

So I guess we're getting this done the hard way. As long as they get it done.

Warmth.

The season 4 finale of The Office aired last night. I haven't laughed out loud at a sitcom like I did for this episode in a long, long time. Part of what made the whole thing work was the ease with which Amy Ryan entered the fray, creating an intriguing foil to Michael within minutes, and then believable fleshing out detail after detail as the scenes go on. (Ryan had her big mainstream break in Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone -- just owning Cate Blanchett in the pre-Oscar awards race for Best Supporting Actress.) I'm so taken with these women guesting in ensemble comedies and radiating warmth and comedy. I kept thinking of Scrubs's Sarah Chalke on How I Met Your Mother in particular as I watching. These are the guest spots of legend.

My only beef with the episode: Whereas some shows when mentioning a fake website actually put one up, The Office should have put the full Youtube clip of Ryan being carted away up. Boo.

Unacceptable.

Another great female tennis play is burnt out. Is this somehow a backhanded after-effect of punishing the women for wanting equal prize money at the Grand Slams? The WTA makes the women play so much more over the course of a year than the ATP does the men. We end up with injuries taking out Kim Clijsters and the Williams sisters. No way should Hingis have already retired. It just boggles my mind that in what should be the golden age of women's tennis, we're getting sad draws at major events because the women are being pressured to play too much, or too little in some cases because outside promoters get their hands on them as sexpots and non-tennis pros. The Williams' "fashion" venture isn't, and Sharapova being the highest paid female athlete--despite not being number one--is just egregious. And what do we get for it? A couple years of decent playing out of each player. The Grand Slams have recently been spread out among the top female players, not because the field is so competitive as it has the potential to be, but because too many can't or don't compete.

Henin is my favorite female player. Her backhand is friggin' beautiful. Her 2003(?) semi-final match against Jennifer Capriati at the U.S. Open is quite possibly my favorite tennis match of all time. So yeah, I'm personally upset that at 25, she's leaving the scene. Hence the rant, and here it endeth.

American Idol Top 3: "Choice."

That's a fun little ironic theme. Don't get me wrong, I totally get that Idol is first and foremost a television show, and only then is it about forwarding the contestants' careers. Still, last night's show was so lopsidedly produced that no such Paula-puppet was needed. To their credit, it seemed like the judges actually struggled a little (only a little) with acting like the good doobies that the producers wanted them to be.

The judges' song choices were, as always, amazing. This is usually my favorite Idol round because it's the first time that the judges really get to impart their true expertise on the contestants. Yes, even Paula and Randy are relevant. They get song choice. They get that you have to work within your limitations (of which both have in spades). Simon's pick for Cook was by far the most daring and the most successful. I couldn't hear it work before Cook made it work, in a way he didn't with Music of the Night. It was a straightforward rendition with a smattering of rock. I'm not a Cook fan, but that was very cool. Paula's pick for Archuleta was equally cool. Arch gets criticized for singing old ballads well and nothing else. The insight into taking a Billy Joel song is that these songs are timeless, in a way that only a master like Joel can produce. Arch gets his old-time ballad, but we get a radio ready hit.

Syesha got the underside of the bus view all night. Everyone wants an all-David finale, so she was just cannon fodder all night. None of her songs were memorable, and that's her weakness: she has had no "Idol Moment." Arch had Imagine, and Cook had Always Be My Baby. Syesha has teeth and a pretty dress that looked like it was two shades of champagne. That's not a good thing.

I'm confused by the Producers' Picks. What makes the producers music experts? They know how to put on good TV, but that's it. This seemed like a blatant way to favor/disfavor the contestants. And Cook's bombastic crap showed how the producers wanted it. For goodness sake, they even had Diane Warren in the audience, and they had Simon praise the song as one of the all time greats. What? Dude, I listen to N'Sync on repeat, and even I hated that song.

In the end, it only matters if big and little David don't both make it to the final. That's what the producers and what we want. Syesha, make a beeline to Broadway. Honey, you are made for the Great White Way.

Hellga.

NBC kept her! The second season of the new version premiered tonight, and my love--that absolutely awful gladiator--is still there. Contenders, be afrai- er, happy. I sure gosh golly am.

Day One.

One full day as a newly minted J.D. Feels good.

American Idol Top 4: Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame

This was a pretty cool theme overall. Pretty pleased about that. But I'm getting tired of this season already. No one excites me. No one makes me want to come back for me. And I don't think that anyone this season did that for me. There's no Blake Lewis, no Chris Daughtry, no Anthony Fedorov, no Fantasia, no K.Lo, and no Tamyra. I'd agree with the judges that this season overall had the best singers--I thought everyone starting at about the, oh, top 9 or so were solid. That's different from other seasons, where you usually had to wait until the top 4 or top 5 until you really saw the true contenders. But this season, I don't see any one true star that I can get behind.

I actually liked Jason Castro. I think the judges were just punishing him for telling the truth, because he didn't really do anything different than he usually does. He was laid back, chill, and had a cool vibe going. The judges liked it before, but now are ready to throw him under the bus.

Which is where Syesha should go. It's dawning on everyone now that she's a stage star, not a recording star. There is a difference, and personally, I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. If anything, stage acts are cooler. It has nothing to do with her being fake, but it has everything to do with the fact that she should be playing Aida, and not Idol.

Let's just get on with the David v. David showdown, shall we? How cool would it be to spread the finale over TWO weeks. Talk about an awesome twist. Kick off both Jason and Syesha (although I think only Jason will go), and have wet puppy noses v. the Joker become a 2 week event. I'd DVR all of it.

Primary.

Is this what Ohio feels like? Today is the first national election where my vote might--might--actually matter. In 2000 I was in Massachusetts, and in 2004 I was in New York. This fall, I'll be in Washington DC. Even for the midterm elections, there were no national ballots that I was going to influence. But NOW... I'm in North Carolina, and by some weird twist of a nip, Obama and Clinton are still going at it. No one thought this would happen, and while Indiana is the bigger deal today, I'm gonna take whatever I can get.

Atlanta: Done.

Phew.

Final.

I'm currently taking the final final of my life. It is a 24-hour take home exam. The only thing I've been able to conclude is . . .

I am just astoundingly talented at distracting myself.