slangwhanger.

presenting The Most Awesome Word You'll Learn All Week:

slangwhanger: a noisy or abusive talker or writer, a ranting partisan, a bitterly partisan political journalist, a demagogic orator.

so, in other words, whenever i look at the television and see some windbag like ann coulter or bill o'reilly staring back at me, i'm going to start shouting, "slangwhanger! slangwhanger!"

this may also be useful against people on the street who attempt to push their political views upon me. this will be even funnier than screaming at the television, as i'll have the added benefit of seeing their faces scrunched up into a confused little ball, as they're trying to figure out what in the world i am calling them.

voldy voldy voldy

my voice teacher deserves many shiny objects for telling me about Potter Puppet Pals. it's a series of very silly puppet skits based on the major characters in Harry Potter.

there are four of them out there, but this one is my favourite: The Mysterious Ticking Noise.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

professional responsibility

i'm working on my legal ethics final exam. professional responsibility class is such a load of hogwash. it does no good. legal ethics are common sense, and you really don't need a book full of convoluted, clunky, nonbinding rules to understand what a lawyer should and should not do.¹ it boils down to a few simple things.

• don't practice law without a license. if you don't have a license in a state, you should not be practicing law there.
• don't lie.
• don't blab about stuff that clients tell you.
  
• Cover Your Ass, part 1: put all of your agreements with clients in writing, no matter how minor.
• keep your clients informed of what you are doing on their case.
• work diligently on your cases.
• sock away any money that could possibly end up going to a client, and don't spend it or commingle it with anything else until it is all settled that your client has been paid in full.
  
• don't represent a client if you don't think you can do it fairly.
• Cover Your Ass, part 2: if you think you can represent a client fairly but there's something that may lead to the appearance of a conflict, get a written waiver signed by the client.
  

some law students understand this. they won't run afoul of the ethical rules, they don't get disciplined, and they will have a fruitful career in the law. they don't need a professional responsibility course to tell them these things. some law students don't understand this. they'll lie, cheat, and steal with imagined impunity despite what any little green book or any stuffed-suit ethics prof says.

this ethics final is such a waste of time.

***
¹ yes, i realise i'm probably not in the best position to be convincingly bitching about legal ethics, given my little setback earlier this week. however, i am firmly convinced that my inability to pass a multiple choice test about these idiotic, arcane rules of professional responsibility does not undermine my assertion that i know the larger concepts of what a lawyer should or should not be doing.

kissing

from the Captain Obvious Newsfeed: a recent study has shown that if you suck at kissing, you're probably not going to get any further with a person. they probably won't sleep with you, and they're liable to not even call you again the next day.

duh!

good kisses feel good. bad kisses, however, are just a mockery of all that is good in this world. i'm definitely guilty of not going out with someone again just because of the way they kissed...it has only happened once, but the guy was such an awful kisser that my lips were sore for days. i felt like i was kissing a vacuum cleaner. if i wanted to kiss a vacuum cleaner, i'd kiss an honest-to-god vacuum cleaner--my lips would feel the same way afterwards, and i wouldn't have had to go through the formalities of buying it a drink or two before initiating any kissing.

it makes me wonder why they needed to fund and conduct a study to find out that kissing mattered a lot. anyone who has ever dated or even just fooled around knows that.