My final confirmation email:

Dear [DoorFrame],

This email confirms you have successfully uploaded your answer file for the July 2008 California Bar Examination. ExamSoft has received the following exam from you:

Institution: State Bar of California
Application #: XXXXX
Exam File: CalBar_XXXXXXX.XXX
Answer File: XXXX-CalBar_XXXXXXXXX.XXX
Upload Date: 7/31/2008
Confirmation ID: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Exam Download/Upload Confirmation: Click on this link or copy and paste into your browser to review how to confirm your exam files were downloaded and your answer files were uploaded successfully: http://www.examsoft.com/confirmations

Sincerely,

ExamSoft Support
barsupport@examsoft.com
8:30am - 5:30pm ET

Would it be possible to create a list, from scratch, of every movie I’ve ever watched, or every book I’ve ever read? And if so, how long would it take me?

Bar exam day one? Earth shaking.

Day two? Tidal waving?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a giant! Also, he gets punched in the crotch an awful lot. This is all my mind can handle now.

The bar starts in 12 hours.

From AFP:

The protest is not only directed against the anti-immigration movement, but also the meat plant itself, which over the years has left a long trail of workplace safety and environmental violations, including amputations and spilling 40,000 gallons of turkey blood into a nearby stream.

This gives me an idea for a movie, it’s The Insider meets The Prince of Egypt meets Carrie. It’ll make a million bucks!

Despite mediocre reviews and a slightly goofy trailer, I really do love the concept of Noise (just like I loved the concept of The Believer). The poster, like the concept, is great:

I’m perplexed as to exactly when this movie came out, but it’s evidently been released… somewhere. I’ll have to pick it up on DVD at some point.

Oh, and check out the DVD’s cute tag line. Awwwwww.

Graham Greene sure has fallen on hard times:

from gorge ken
reply-to grahamgreen207@gmail.com
to meg.wilson@-redacted-.com
date Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:58 PM
subject IMMEDIATE JOB OFFER

Hello,

Would you like to work online from home and get paid weekly? A&E Textiles needs a book-keeper in the states, so I want to know if you will like to work online from home and get paid weekly without leaving or affecting your present job.

Please if you are interested in this position make sure you get back to me on the private e-mail address below:

Grahamgreen207@gmail.com

Send me your Full Name, physical address, telephone and fax numbers.

Thanks

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Scissors? Spatula? Why not combine them and use them to cut pizza!

I can’t tell if this is the best idea ever, or the worst idea ever, but it’s 100% pure SkyMall.

Via Doobybrian and Rand Good Stuff.

A fellow bar taker today pointed out that during his post-study TV watching, he found himself laughing like a giddy child a jokes he probably wouldn’t normally enjoy quite so ebulliently. I notice myself doing the same thing, so I warn that my sense of humor may be totally off at this point. In addition, this video is about the law, so who the hell knows if it’s even the least bit entertaining.

Oh, by the way, that had some NSFW language. Sorry about that.

Even top lawyers fail the California Bar.

“Timing devices brought into the examination test centers are to be used solely for the determination of the passage of time.” Do you think this precludes timing devices that stop, reverse or otherwise alter the passage of time?

Do you want to be, like Barack Obama, a “citizen of the world,” but find yourself bound by your paltry unitary national citizenship?  Would you like to give your passport a little upgrade?

If you’re looking to pick up some international dual-citizenship status, you’ve come to the right place; here are a collection of mildly authentic representations of citizenship tests from around the world:

• American Citizenship Test (20 questions in English)
• American Citizenship Test (19 Questions in English)
• Australian Citizenship Test (20 questions in English)
• Austrian Citizenship Test (German PDF, not an online test)
• British Citizenship Test (14 questions in English)
• Canadian Citizenship Test (between 5 and 100 questions in English)
• French Citizenship Test (10 questions without answers in English)
• German Citizenship Test (10 questions in English)
• Mexican Citizenship Test (Spanish PDF, not an online test)

Are there any more online?  Am I missing any?  There’s a Dutch test, but I can’t seem to find any questions online.

People taking BarBri in New York got some sort of emailed, online fortune cookies to lift their spirits. California BarBri sent me a reminder to return my books which did not in any way lift my spirits. I felt left out, so I made my own Bar fortune, using the standard technique of adding “on the bar exam” to the end of a traditional fortune cookie fortune:

Sorry, that was not a particularly interesting video for anybody.

Dear Microsoft (makers of Microsoft Word 2007), nobody ever wants their documents displayed like this:

The best part is that the pages are numbered consecutively in the following order: upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right.

Now, this difficult-to-read format is bad, but it wouldn’t be nearly half as bad if I could simply opt out of it.  Word 2007 displays a document in two columns if you change the zoom from a position where only one column could fit, to a position where two columns could fit, regardless of whether you recently set the display option for single or dual column.   The setting is ignored as soon as you start to zoom.

This is an infuriating quirk.  Here’s a quick video demonstrating the problem:

And JW below was right, this is whiny. In the video I even have an exacerbated sigh!

Why do all citizenship tests seem to consist of questions whose answers can be deduced without actually knowing much of anything about the country? German citizenship test: 7 out of 10. American citizenship test: 19 out of 20.

Anybody else going through the bar preparation process want to share how messy and note-laden their room has become?

I like the cut of this girl’s jib:

I took the five-week, three-hour-a-day [Bar] prep course, paid for the computer software, booked a hotel room near the testing site and even stayed one night there. But, at 2 a.m. before the first day of the test, I decided that I wasn’t prepared enough to take it. So I didn’t. I was angry at myself, but I felt more relieved than anything else.

Then I did the exact same thing all over again — in February [2008]. It’s now summer and, once again, I’m registered to take the exam.

I’m thinking of bailing out of one or two bar exams. Anyone want to join me?

The town I grew up in was swindled (via the vagaries of bankruptcy law) out of one $322,000 firetruck. And they’re not happy:

from Irvington Village News <———@———-.com>
reply-to ———@———-.com
date Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 1:13 PM
subject Trustee Pat Ryan resigns from Village Board

At a meeting of Irvington Board of Trustees held July 21, 2008, Trustee Pat Ryan resigned from the Board. Mayor Erin Malloy thanked Trustee Ryan for her service to the Village and for being a “terrific colleague and terrific running mate.” Trustee Ryan was first elected as Trustee in 2006 and in her second term after winning re-election in March 2008.

In announcing her resignation, Ms. Ryan cited that “there is a decision before the Board that is very complicated and very difficult — It is a decision that I believe I cannot support.” Ms. Ryan was concerned that the Board’s decision to seek recovery of the lost fire truck funds from a fidelity bond held by the Village on behalf of former Clerk/Treasurer Edward Ritter could have personal financial impacts on Mr. Ritter.

Mayor Malloy, it’s worth noting, was the coin-toss loser of the exciting mayoral election of 2005 that ended in an exact tie. She actually had one more vote, but after a lengthy court battle a sealed ballot cast by one of her supporters was thrown out.   She won in 2007.

My home town’s politics are fantastic!

2008 is both a real, and a fictional, election year. In 1955 Isaac Asimov wrote a short story titled Franchise about a fictional election in 2008:

In the future, the United States has converted to an “electronic democracy” where the computer Multivac selects a single person to answer a number of questions. Multivac will then use the answers and other data to determine what the results of an election would be, avoiding the need for an actual election to be held.

The story centers around Norman Muller, the man chosen as “Voter of the Year” in 2008. At first he is not sure he wants the responsibility of representing the entire electorate, worrying that the result will be unfavorable and he will be blamed. However, after voting he is very proud that the citizens of the United States had, through him, “exercised once again their free, untrammeled franchise” - a statement that is somewhat ironic as the citizens didn’t actually get to vote.

I might actually endorse this electoral system.

Via Empirical Legal Studies, Above the Law, and NAALP.

Phew! Ok, so it’s not Obama. Glad we cleared that up. My friends will be disappointed, though.

I like that Glen Beck is getting crazy email about this too.

After a surprisingly long period of research, I’ve found what appears to be the only option for purchasing an authentic barrister’s wig: the very Harry Potter-esque Ede and Ravenscroft of Chancery Lane. The lowest tier wig (above) costs £495.00 and is all sorts of awesome.

I’m going to buy one and wear it around my house while I watch TV and eat Cheetos.

The frizz-top wig is better, but it costs £1775.00 and my budget for humorous wig purchases doesn’t stretch QUITE that far.