Does anyone remember “Magnum Matt“? He was the “dude” who spent several days stalking me via website so that he could tell me how stupid I was. He knew he was right because he had a degree and I hadn’t graduated from Alabama yet.

…I wonder if he wants to come back and have another debate now that I have a more advanced degree than he does. It’ll be awesome to win automatically on account of it.

Maybe he’s too busy. His TV career was “taking off” back in 2004, so surely he’s some national news anchor or something now, right? That’s got to count for something.

…and, surprisingly, I won.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. This is a stupid thing to say since, really, every day is the first day of the rest of your life. Unless you plan to start living backwards, which I don’t. Today is also the first day with my new Alma Mater. I’m still trying it on and kicking the tires — two metaphors one doesn’t often see mixed — but I like it so far.

The last few weeks have been a crazy, incredible whirlwind of friends, fears, and beers and there couldn’t have been a more fitting end to what has been a life-changing course of study at IU Law. I’m going to try to recap it in a way that is short enough so as not to be boring, but let’s be honest: it’ll probably be long.

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Looking Studious, originally uploaded by TooMuchPete.

Here you see a picture of Scout modeling my graduation cap. Later on this afternoon, I will be wearing said cap, along with a tassel, gown, and a sweet doctoral hood.

Congrats to the IU Law class of 2008… it’s been fun.

Indiana Code Section 15-2.1-21-13(b):

A person who dyes, stains, or otherwise alters the natural coloring of a bird or rabbit commits a Class B misdemeanor.

Ladies and gentlemen, keep your festive colors off of those chicks and rabbits.

I love this:

On the other hand, it makes it seem like there’s something of a formula to new music these days. Ahh well.

(via: Kristin Hoppe)

So, yesterday I was wasting some time on my computers… both of them at once, might I add, when the laptop spontaneously shut down. Being the trained computer professional that I am, I knew exactly what this was: Bad News.

It didn’t take long to figure out that the problem is (at least) the harddrive. Fortunately I do nightly back-ups of both of my computers and I don’t really keep anything important on my laptop anyway.

The concern I have, though, is whether it’s worth the cost to fix. Primary concern: I have a final coming up in the not too distant future and I refuse to hand-write my exams. For health reasons. Specifically, my hand would fall completely off.

That said, I could probably borrow a laptop for the day, and I’m getting the impression that fixing the machine could cost a few hundred bucks, and for that price I could buy a new monitor for the Mac and use it as a second desktop, which is pretty much what I’m using the laptop for now.

Frankly, I think this is a conspiracy.

Sometime in the past day or two, Blingo made a really, really awful change. They dumped Google. Now if you search Blingo, you get Windows Live, Yahoo, and Ask.com search results. Google’s nowhere to be found, and repeats (the same result from two different engine) are common. In short: it sucks.

I can’t find anything about the change, and their blog hasn’t been updated since October.

Well, it was a good run, but I guess Publisher’s Clearing House had to ruin it at some point. Time to go back to vanilla google.

It’s always good to be prepared.

…you never know — it could happen.

(Via: Kristin Hoppe)

It’s interesting… basketball is a sport whose fans are regularly heard to bitch about the refs “deciding the game” at the end, and the popular refrain is “let them play.” Honestly, I think that’s dumb. If you don’t want a foul called on you, don’t commit one.

“The refs shouldn’t be deciding the game”, is another way of phrasing this oft-heard complaint. It’s just another way of saying “Let teams cheat at the end of the game, because it’s more exciting that way.” It’s one thing to complain about bad calls or bad non-calls, it’s another to suggest that the refs should be more lenient at the end of the game because we get bored with free-throws. One has to keep in mind that for every no-call made at the end of the game in the name of keeping you entertained, there’s a team that’s being allowed to cheat (and another that’s getting hurt) because you can’t handle another 30 seconds of down-time.

Take a look at the refs “letting [UCLA] play” on the last shot of last night’s game: TexAgs.com Basketball Forums. Good thing the Refs didn’t decide the game, though, eh? That would’ve been boring.