Saturday, February 28, 2004

Tim Farris Freedom Festival

Friday was a busy day for me. It started with the aforementioned high school students visiting the law school. Besides running out of breakfast snacks, everything went smoothly and ON TIME!! Surprising, I know. We got rave thank you's from the teachers so, hopefully, they weren't just being nice.

Right after that, I drove to Dallas for the "Freedom Festival." Tim is marrying Erin, a good friend of mine from law school. As a matter of fact, Erin was one of the first friends I made here. It didn't hurt that she happened to be sitting next to a gorgeous 6'3 blonde at the time. Anyway, they graciously asked me to be in their wedding party which is accompanied by certain duties. One of those duties is getting the groom very drunk at least once.

Thankfully, Tim isn't down with the whole strip club bachelor party cliche because neither am I. As much as I eschew participating in debauchery, I try not to infringe on others who want to have women rub on them in exchange for crumbled $1 bills. We went to a Dallas Stars game (Dallas won, 3-1). My first hockey game, for what its worth. I didn't realize that there are only 6 to a side-it seems like so many more on TV. That may have to do with the line changes, they subsitute just by skating on and off the ice in groups.

Next we hit Pete's Dueling Piano Bar which was fun. This was also where Tim proceeded to get drunk. Another funny thing that happened was that the success of a guy in our group with the ladies seemed to vary inversely with their availability. In other words, the only guys that got any play were the one's w/ girlfriends. Don't worry ladies. No one did anything wrong...in front of me, anyway. JUST KIDDING! Can you guess from my tone which one of us was the only single guy? Yep, it was me. :( Oh well...

The best part of the night was Tim yelling at the cab driver on the way home, "SLOW DOWN!! You're doing, like, 90!!" What makes this so funny is that we were AT A STOP LIGHT!! Another one of my favorite lines, "It's pilates, Jackass!"

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Dave Chappelle...

has a funny ass show. I haven't been able to stop saying, "What did the five fingas say to the face? SLAP!! I'm Rick James, bitch!" all week. His sketch in the first season on what it would be like if the government paid reparations for slavery was hysterical. NEWSCASTER: "On Wall Street today--Fubu, KFC, and (Def Jam Records?) announced a merger, creating the world's largest corporation. Also, Lincoln has announced Navigator sales have shot up 5000% in the last 48 hours."

The Passion of the Christ

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last month (and for some reason came to this site first), Mel Gibson's movie comes out this week.

Some of the hubub has been over the selling of pendants in the shape of nails. I'm a little at a loss as to why people are pissed about this. I hear the "profiting off of Christ" argument, it just doesn't make sense. How is a nail different from a cross or a crucifix? Or have the people pissed off always been against that too, but had given up until this brought the issue up again?

UGGHHHH!!

Charlie Brown said it best. Sorry I've been out of touch for a while. Two of the things I use the most have been acting up for me lately. My truck and my laptop. I think I've tracked down the trouble with both (OK, so the mechanic at the garage and his computer technically figured out what was wrong w/ my truck).

On top of that I have a bunch of student recruitment stuff to do. We have 80 high school kids coming in tomorrow, and CRAP!! I have to call some teachers now!.....gotta run...

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Law school wannabees are so cute.

We talk to a lot of anal applicants in the admissions office. We have this whole pile of stuff that applicants have sent their applications in with. Folders, covers, pockets, even a 3-ring binder! That one was the best...the person actually put each individual piece of paper in a separate plastic cover! I can't even imagine how much time that took, assuming we weren't the only school the person applied to.

Tip to future applicants: Don't do that. Please. It just makes it more of a pain in the butt for whoever opens the mail at whatever law school you're applying to.

At least we haven't gotten any "Elle Woods"-esque personal statement videos...that I know of.

Colorado Football scandal

Click here for the story.
I still can't believe I heard the words come out of Coach Barnett's mouth. He was answering questions about an allegation made by a female kicker and former member of the football team (the only female to score in NCAA football history, timeline here) that she was raped by a teammate!!!. This is what he said to reporters:

"It was obvious that Katie was not very good. She was awful. You know what guys do - they respect your ability. Katie was a girl, and not only was she a girl, she was terrible. There's no other way to say it."

This man is an idiot. All that other stuff about strippers, escorts, and booze at recruit parties is one thing. It is no secret to anyone who knows anything about college football that players take recruits out to party. Coaches tell them not to, but they do it anyway. Granted, the coaches probably don't try to hard to find out exactly what's going on--as long as they stay out of trouble, most don't care. But to be so publically dismissive of a rape allegation is unbelievable. There is no way he can try to deny knowing Katie Hnida was harrassed by other players on the team. I wasn't there, and I would bet the farm on it. The UC administration needs to drop the hammer on their own program before the NCAA goes SMU-death penalty on their ass.

Saturday, February 14, 2004

More snow?!

It snowed in Austin last night! Real, honest-to-goodness snow! There was about 2 inches of snow on my truck this morning. Some kids in my apartment complex made a 4 ft. tall snowman. My snowman was slightly less ambitious.

Leave me alone...Kids from the Valley don't exactly get a lot of practice making snowmen growing up. The closest I can remember is when there was this mega-freeze in the mid-1980's. Our Buick LeSaber had a layer of ice on it an inch and a half thick. I got all bundled up to go outside and look at it. Then, unbeknownst to my parents, I went inside and got a hammer. I went back outside and proceeded to hit the car with the hammer to see if I could break the ice. I was about 6, and it made sense at the time. Actually, it still makes sense to me. Is that bad?

Friday, February 13, 2004

Snow?!

I just saw footage of snow in Waco!! How crazy is that? I love local TV news. The network just ran a teaser from the grocery store saying "Residents are preparing for the cold weather" in an ominous tone. The funny part was that while the unseen voice was saying this, the camera zoomed in on one of the check out lines and bags with...you guessed it! LIFE SAVING, WARMTH GIVING TORTILLA CHIPS!!!! Local news folks are such morons...

Isn't America great?

I bought a ski cap and set of headphones for $1.60 at Acadamy this morning. How cool is that?

Monday, February 09, 2004

All Caught Up

Yeah for me! I've finally caught up with all the episodes of Alias and The West Wing that I missed while I was in Australia. I got a little spoiled. Now I have to wait a whole week to see the next one. On a sad note, I'm still way behind on 24 which is really almost impossible to skip episodes without messing things up. I'm missing one episode! It's keeping me from moving on *sigh*.

I know, I know...life's really tough.

Saturday, February 07, 2004

Lost in Translation...no kidding.

I saw Lost in Translation last night with a friend of mine. I've been keen on seeing this ever since I got back. Everyone said it was great. Nominated for this Oscar and that Golden Globe. Bill Murray's best work, even. Ya' know what?

I must have missed the point because I didn't think it was funny at all. It WAS supposed to be funny, wasn't it? I had the exact same feeling when I saw The Royal Tennenbaums. I kept waiting for it to get funny, and it never did. Shouldn't a comedy have at least a funny premise? Shouldn't the main characters do funny things? There were a few scenes that I probably would have laughed at had I not already been in "What the hell is this movie trying to say?" mode.

Oh, well. At least I didn't have to pay for it. Thanks, Mo! (poor thing...she DID have to pay for it)

"Baby" needs a better nickname

I was listening to the news last week and this one almost had me blow OJ all over my beloved Eggos. The story was about testimony in Martha Stewart's insider trading trial. Martha's defense is trying to say that her broker's assistant was fixated on her (*sarcasm on* perfectly logical, who wouldn't be? It's Martha freakin' Stewart! *sarcasm off) and basically set her up.

The defense produced emails this schlub wrote to his friends after he spoke to Stewart. Apparently, she wasn't very nice to him on the phone. This was the best part. The text of one email read:

"Martha yelled at me again today, but I snapped in her face and she actually backed down! Baby put Ms. Martha in her place!!!"

Now I don't know what' s worse--that the guy refers to himself in the 3rd person in emails or that when doing so, calls himself "Baby." No, wait. Yeah, I do know which is worse. Grown men shouldn't refer to themselves as "Baby." The fact that he did it while telling someone how badass he was for standing up to Mean Martha Stewart makes it that much funnier.

Thursday, February 05, 2004

Last Notes From the Southern Hemisphere

"Where are you going?" My answer was simply, "Home." When people asked me where I was from, I always answered with a proud and emphatic, "Texas." (with an added twang if I felt like messing with 'em) This time, Texas was an afterthought. I was headed Home.

Home to my truck. Home to my ranch. (I know you were wondering...The answer is yes, you can get more stereotypically Texan than owning a truck and living on a ranch.) Home to chicken fried steaks, Whataburger, and free local phone calls.

Home to real lemonade, Eggo waffles, and Totino's Pizzas. The mass of $2 coins jingling in my pockets is replaced by $1 bills folded neatly in my wallet. I'm returning to Chevrolets, Ford F-150's, and Cadillacs, never to see another Holden.

I can now go buy something at 10 PM at most places in town instead of having to wait for Sydney's famous "Late Night Shopping" on Thursday's when stores stay open until 9 PM!!! I may never have Gelato at Circular Quay, but I do miss Amy's Ice Cream and Blizzard's from Dairy Queen. (Brief aside: Have you notice how expensive Blizzard's are? I remember when they were 99 cents! I am getting old...)

I am thankfully leaving behind fried rice balls (which I am fairly certain are entirely a creation of this little, overpriced Mexican restaurant in Sydney) and coming back to my Mom's homemade tortillas and Chuy's chips and Chuychangas.

Did I mention I also got an extra day? Well not really. I never got a July 10th, so whoever it is that took it decided to give me two December 9ths. Quite an odd thing really. I'm just glad my birthday wasn't on the July 10th. How much would that suck?