BuffaloWings&Vodka

We Can Do This

I got my bar exam ticket and info today.  My understanding of the scoring of the Texas Bar Exam is as follows:

1.  They grade our MBE's, subtracting or adding a few points to everyone's score based on previous years.
2.  They assign us grades for the Texas Essays, MPT, and P&E by rank ordering the raw scores for each test, and then converting a given raw score to the raw score of the same rank from the MBE scores.

So, if your raw score on the Texas Essays is in the 20th percentile, you get whatever the 20th percentile score is on the MBE.  Which means, the better everybody does on the MBE, the less it matters what happens on the rest of the exam.  This has to be at least partially responsible for the great pass rate here; the greater number of people taking the test who think that all you have to do is rock the MBE, the more all you have to do is rock the MBE.

And more specifically: If we could guarantee that everyone in the state got at least a 135 out of 200 on the MBE, then we could all write nothing but "Screw the Board of Law Examiners" on the other three sections of the test, and still pass.

Who's with me?

Caffeinous Envy

I was feeling nominally good about myself, having finally tamed my espresso machine and gotten to a place where I'd actually rather sit at home and drink my own creations than mix among the masses at Starbucks. Then I had the misfortune to go over to my brother-in-law's house, where I was confronted with the $800 Espresso Machine of Doom that is not only pump-driven, so as to churn out a much higher quality of espresso product than my own machine, but also stores and grinds beans on demand, obviating the need for the separate grinding step and apparatus.

I was broken.

That is, until I found this badboy, who does all of the above, and will also store and chill milk for up to 18 hours.

Now I just need to find one that will harvest and roast beans to my specifications before grinding.  And clean up after it's done.  And help me understand commercial paper.

The Legal Has Been Very Good On Me, Yes? Okay!

Nosing around the National Conference of Bar Examiners Online Store--looking for a sample MPT and perhaps some commemorative MBE buttons--I found what I think might be the saddest testimonial in the world:

"I Love the sight it has motivated me to try to raise money to take the test after having graduated and failed many times."

I count seven independent reasons to start crying.

Won't You Be?

Got what I thought was a poorly written contracts question wrong just now.

Kind of yelled a lot.

Neighbor knocked on door to see if I was okay.

I'm not.

No more grades.

At long last, I no longer have a reason to check my grades on the web.

I feel like a part of me has died.

But bar results will be good for at least a week of compulsive clicking in November.  And then again in the spring.

Mnemonics

Since I'm still really not past ConLaw, I haven't gotten into the business of hardcore mnemonic design. (Though, if anyone has a good rhyme to help me remember the three branches of the federal government, I'd be grateful.)  But I did find this thread from last year that seems to have a lot of ready-made memory aids for people too lazy to make their own.

Still Failing

The MBE is basically like taking 8 LSAT logical reasoning sections in a row.  Think of that as taking two LSAT's, back-to-back, with all four sections being LR.  Or as taking one really long LSAT.  Or as taking a multiple-choice,  multi-state bar exam with 200 questions.

At this point, I've been able to make myself do 34 questions in a row.  200 is a much bigger number than 34.

I'm a Traitor. So?

So...I've been cheering for Miami since the finals started.  I know that I live in Dallas now, but it would have been almost as lame for me to just start being a Mavs fan after being in town for only three weeks, right?

I initially felt bad about this, and felt guilty about my mancrush on D-Wade.  But not any more.  Because Avery Johnson is now officially the stupidest coach in the history of the NBA. 

I don't really care about the timeout--though, why he felt the need to tell his players to call a timeout after the second free throw, risking that one of the brainiacs on the floor might misinterpret his meaning, when it's a safe bet that at least one of them would have called the intended timeout unbidden, is beyond me. 

I'm talking about the emmingeffing Hack-a-Shaq.

Stupid #1:  Pulling it out at all.  For the weakass coach who pulls it, the Hack-a-Shaq is simply a message to your own team, a message that says "I don't think you chuckleheads can play defense."  So he sucks for that.

Stupid #2: But why, oh why, did he pull it out in fucking overtime?  Once with less than four minutes left and once with less than three minutes left, he has someone foul Shaq off the ball.  WTF????  They weren't in the penalty, and they  didn't immediately foul him again after the inbound, so there was no way they were actually forcing him to the line.  Were they just being lame for the sake of lameness?  Or was this another miscommunication problem, because, you know, Avery Johnson's voice is just so hard to pick out from a crowd?

"Well, they were using the fouls they had to give to throw off the Heat's rhythm."

Okay...but how about using those fouls to at least try to accomplish something useful, like going for a steal?

Avery Johnson is a joke.  And much like his Spurs, his Mavs are a bitch team.  And Dirk Nowitzki is nothing more than a 7-foot-tall shooting guard, a latter-day Matt Bullard who just happens to get the ball a lot, a big silly goatfucker that tried to kick a stationary bike on the way out of the stadium. 

But I still wouldn't really put money on Miami being able to win here.

EDIT: I honestly wasn't aware that calling Dirk a "big silly kraut" qualified as a full-blooded ethnic slur.  I thought it more of a quaint, throwback sort of slur, like calling someone a "vile, bloodthirsty Hun," a "goddam date-worshipping Hittite," or a "slack-jawed Sumerian lackwit."

But a quick thought experiment involving "throwback" terms for groups more frequently the targets of ethnic slurs quickly brings one to the conclusion that the relative mustiness of a term by no means excuses the singling out of someone on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin, no matter how much they suck.

The post has been amended accordingly.

Quick! Someone help me detrimentally rely!

I just got a statement from my bank saying that the $2000 loan I took out at the beginning of law school to get my laptop--which carried, I thought, a 10.8% interest rate--has, in fact, a .108% interest rate.

Sadly, this mistake is just a part of my consolidation paperwork, on the list of private loans that I do not wish to consolidate.  But there has to be some way to make it work for me.

Apparently, There Are Parking Garage Problems at Bar-Bri

For all of you who have been pained over the last few weeks by the parking/security/boredom situations in your respective Bar-Bri centers, I tell you now: I feel that pain.

Why, just today, when I woke up around 11 am after sleeping off a full night of rum and conga, I walked to the coffee shop across the street to get my morning mocha, and there were, like, four people in line ahead of me.  So I gave up on the mocha and headed back to my apartment.  But then, when I walked into my bedroom to do some practice questions, my cat was sitting in my chair.  So I couldn't even study.

It's okay, though.  I think it's healthy for everyone to be venting their Bar-Bri-spawned rage here, seeing as how nobody would listen to my wise, sage, Yodaesque advice and go it solo. 

Just make sure that somebody else's comments section is available for me to bitch in after I fail.

Abstention! Ripeness! Mootness! Screw ConLaw!

I seem to have plateaued on my road to total MBE domination.  I'll have to up my grueling study pace to, gulp, 34 questions a day. 

Could be worse.  I could be Tbag.

MicroMash: Day 2

I don't trust you, MicroMash.  What the hell is  Coloflornia, and why do I care about its citizens?
Where in the world is the country of "Zugi"? And what the shit is this supremacy clause you keep harping about?

MicroMash, I think you're lying to me.

Granted, I could only bring myself to do 17 practice questions today. But, still, I'm suspicious.

Next thing I know, you're going to tell me that the bar exam is closed book.

Silly, silly MicroMash.