A few months ago, I ordered a bunch of Mercedes Lackey books from Amazon.com, and I'm down to my last one. I haven't read every book she's ever read, mainly because I think some of her series are just vehicles for other authors. Maybe I'm just being stubborn--maybe I should assume that if she allowed her name to be connected to them they must be up to her standards.

Anyway, the one series I haven't finished by her is "Takes of the Five Hundred Kingdoms." I read the first book, The Fairy Godmother, a few years ago, but there are now four books in the series and #2, One Good Knight is out of print. (I can get it for $14.95 used on Amazon.com but that seems a lot to me for a mass market paperback.)

It seems like "cheap" paperbacks are now going for at least $10. I still assume paperbacks go for less than $5.00. I guess I don't buy books enough.

Anyway, I need to order some new books and, aside from that series, there's nothing new from Mercedes Lackey. All Amazon.com seems to offer me are children's books, books about dragons, and Harry Potter spin-offs. Not that there's anything wrong with those, per se, but I'd like more sophisticated recommendations.

So any suggestions?

Current Mood: aggravated

For those who don't have Facebook (or aren't on my friends list there): I passed the Oregon Bar!

Now I just need to submit my driving records from all the states where I've had a driver's license. I ordered them all last summer and never got around to sending them in. I kept them even though I didn't pass but I haven't been able to find them since moving last November. I have to update the Oregon one anyway.

I've registered my phone number on the Do Not Call Registry, but I still get lots of calls from people I don't know. I usually ignore them (yay for Caller ID!) but when I do answer, it's either a recording or silence. There's one company that uses a recording in Spanish! I've reported complaints on the Do Not Call Registry page, but I still get them. I'm wondering if I should call Comcast and get my number changed, but I've only had the number since November, so my guess is that a new number won't make a difference.

Current Mood: annoyed

Okay, I know this is a weird things to rant about, but here goes...

Why is it so hard for online forms to accept 9-digit zip codes? It's not like they're new or anything, and the fields invariably have space for at least 10 characters (including the hyphen). If the underlying program really doesn't want the last four, can't it just truncate it? Isn't it simpler programming to truncate a zip code than redisplay the form with an error saying it's a bad zip code?

On a similar note, why can credit card number fields read credit card numbers that include spaces? Can't they just filter the spaces?

Current Mood: annoyed

A long time ago, when I was living and working on Boston, I heard a guy playing hammered dulcimer in the Park Street Station. He had two tapes for sale and I bought one. I played that tape over and over and over for years, but now I don't know where it is.

Back when the Web was relatively new, I think I did a search for his name and didn't find it. Of course, now that I no longer have the tape (or just can't find it), I don't remember his name (though I have this vague feeling it was Alan something).

I wish I'd bought both tapes, that I could remember his name, and that I could find more recordings by him.

Update: After reading the comment from (presumably) Bob Bosler, I googled David Neiman and found an email address. I wrote to him, asking if he was the guy I was thinking of, and I just got a reply saying that's him and he had four CDs! Isn't the Internet an amazing thing?

Current Mood: melancholy

[I've made a few modifications to my original post, to hopefully clarify things for people not familiar with black letter law.]

Battery is intentionally causing harmful or offensive touching to the person of another.
Assault is intentionally causing apprehension of imminent battery. Assault itself does not involve touching or harm. (You can batter someone without assaulting them, and vice versa.)
Apprehension means not fear but expectation.
Offensive means an ordinary person would be offended by it under the circumstances (you may not like strangers touching you but someone bumping into you in a crowded subway is not offensive under this definition).
Consent is a defense to assault, meaning that a defendant can be held not liable for assault if he can show that the plaintiff consented to the act.
The doctrine of transferred intent says that if a person intends to perform a tortious act against another person but instead either performs another tortious act or performs it against a different person, the original intent transfer to the other tort and/or person. For example, A intends to assault B but instead batters C. Transferred intent means that A had the necessary intent to be sued by C for battery (which is intentionally causing harmful or offensive touching to the person of another).

Okay, so here's the problem:

Adam has a really bad case of hiccups that has been bothering him for weeks. He complains of his situation to his friend Bob and begs him to, when Adam isn't expecting it, startle him. Later that day, Bob sees Adam walking down the street. He hides behind a tree and jumps out, throws his arms out, and yells Boo! Unfortunately, it wasn't actually Adam that Bob saw, but Charlie, some guy who happened to look kind of like Adam from a distance. Charlie sues Bob [corrected] for assault. Who wins?

I have some ideas about this, but I'd like to hear opinions.

[Sorry about getting Adam and Bob mixed up. I'm confusing myself with this!]

A few more comments that I added to a response to Ed (below) but thought add back to the original post:

In a criminal situation, there is a defense of "mistake of fact" which Adam could use here, but he's not being brought up on criminal charges in this scenario. He's only being sued, and mistake of fact is not a defense to the tort of assault or battery.

Incidentally, I spoke with some fellow bar review students about this today. Two believed that Charlie could sue Adam because Charlie had not consented, and consent doesn't transfer like intent does. A third student actually works in a law firm and she wasn't so sure. She said she'll ask the lawyer she works with to see what his answer is.

Current Mood: curious

Okay, so what do you do when someone sends you a friend request and implies enthusiastically that they know you, and you have several childhood friends in common, but you have no idea who they are?

Current Mood: puzzled

Due to a series of events that I will perhaps describe at some point (but not now), I am currently living with one man and seven cats (he brought three and one of those had three kittens). I still have Cassandra, who is old (approx. 18y) and mostly deaf, but still lively and fluffy.

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Current Mood: concerned

I recently discovered and became mildly obsessed with Facebook. Yesterday I noticed that capplor was importing his LM posts as notes on Facebook and figured I'd check it out.

I'm curious how it deals with security though. This message is public. I'll try posting something more private in a few minutes and see if that shows up too. (Hopefully not.)

Current Mood: curious

Today's lecture was on Criminal Procedure. Yesterday's was on Criminal Law. Although the lectures are separate, they are otherwise lumped together as "Crimes."

While reading a practice question, I was reminded of this snippet of movie dialog:

Current Mood: tired

Apparently, today's trend in spam is to use bits of Jane Austen's Emma. For example:

Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence "Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You wil With such sensations, Mr. Elton's civilities were dreadfully ill-timed Emma only nodded, and smiled.--After a little thinking, and a very ten
"One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr. Elton. "I am afraid we must be running away," said Emma, glancing at Harriet, "But you should tell them of the letter, my dear," said her father. "H

Current Mood: blah

I finally got tired of just ripping my CDs without actually listening to anything, so I decided to copy a sample of my classical and celtic music to the iPod and start listening to it. After about 10 minutes of wearing the earbuds, my ears started to hurt a lot.

I usually don't like to use headphones or earphones in general because I don't like to be tethered, but there are times when it's necessary. Anyone know of any comfortable replacements for the standard earbuds?

Current Mood: blah

Over the last few years, I have "ripped" nearly all of my CDs, storing the files on an external hard drive. A few months ago, something apparently happened to the root directory of the hard drive because one day. Although it reported that plenty of space was being taken up, the root directory appeared empty. The manufacturer advised me to purchase some software to restore the contents. I managed to find an inexpensive program, which did basically work, but many of the directories were messed up--by which I mean that while most, if not all, of the original files were restored, some new ones were created with the same name but different content or content of bits of other files. Most of these were renamed to the old file name plus "[1]" or something like that, but some weren't. It clearly would not be an easy task to clean up the directories and figure out which CDs if any would need to be re-ripped. And so, I decided to put off doing anything about it until the summer.

( Way too much detail, leading to some cute lyrics )

Current Mood: hot

I feel like this fits me today:

Current Mood: blah

One of my professors told me yesterday that a lawyer is someone who graduated from law school, while an attorney is someone who passed the bar.

So I guess I'm a lawyer!

Current Mood: accomplished

It's been a very long time since I last posted and a lot has happened since then. The idea of filling in the events of the last year or so since I last posted is too overwhelming, so I'm not going to try at this point. I'll just describe the present instead.

Graduation is approaching (May 26th). I've been doing an IP internship at Xerox and today is my second-to-last day. It's been a very light semester. Aside from my internship seminar (which includes 12 hours of work and a 2-hour class session each week), the only regular exam classes I have are Labor Law and Remedies. Classes end in a few weeks and then I have two weeks in which to take the two unscheduled exams (I can take them at any of time slots each day during the exam period). Then bar review starts, followed by graduation, and then more bar review, every weekday until I take the California Bar in July. (This is assuming that California Bar/Bri changes its mind and decides to offer a video class at Lewis & Clark, which it so far is saying it won't do because there aren't enough people who have expressed a desire to take it there--they need 10 and only 9 have signed up so far. If not, I'll probably pay a $50 deposit for an iPOD containing podcasts of all the classes and try to attend the videos of the common subjects in the Oregon bar review class.)

After I take the bar, my future is unclear. I want to move back to the Bay Area, but since my grades have been mediocre, applying for a legal job without knowing my bar exam results is pointless. I do have that Paralegal Certificate, but I don't have paralegal job experience. I could also do tech writing, but it's been four years since I last worked as a tech writer. And then there's the "which comes first, the job or the apartment" problem. Not to mention the problem of paying for moving expenses. At this point, I'm thinking of staying in my apartment here and trying to get a legal temp job in Portland until I know my bar exam results. If I don't pass, I'll try applying remotely for tech writing jobs in the Bay Area.

Current Mood: anxious

One of the reasons that I haven't posted in a long time has been my involvement with Angel Island (see below). Since someone just created a promotion post for people to post on other forums, I figured I might as well include it here. I guess it will give you an idea of what I've been doing for the last year. (Just be clear, I haven't been playing much for the last few months, but I'm volunteer staff for Angel Island, which includes various duties including some actual programming.)
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Current Mood: sleepy

I know it's been ages since I've posted, and I do intend to write about what's been going on with me in the last month or so, but meanwhile I just had post this: Oregon Intellectual Property Newsletter

Current Mood: proud

My last exam of the semester is at 6:30 tonight. Actually I could have taken it any time during the exam period, but I chose the last possible time. I only just finished creating my outline a few minutes ago. This is the only exam where I can't bring anything in, so there's no point actually printing out the outline--I just have to read over it.

The class, by the way, is Family Law, which I enjoyed as a class, but I really don't want to take the exam. I just want to stop now.

My sister, whose birthday is tomorrow, has been getting on my case today because I haven't bought presents for her kids yet. I intended to do it on Monday afternoon after my morning exam, but due to the weather, my exam was postponed until the afternoon, and I was exhausted afterwards. So tomorrow is my only opportunity to do any shopping. Before I got to law school, I was pretty good about doing my gift shopping early. And of course I have to get her a birthday present, which after her emails today, I'm really inclined to do. Maybe I'll just get her a card, though even that would be insincere at this point.

I just have to keep reminding myself that she is only one person I'm going to be seeing in the next week (I'm leaving on Saturday). Others will include, my parents, my brother-in-law, and my nephews, and my brother-in-law's family, all of whom I look forward to seeing. I'll also be meeting some UO guildmates in Baltimore on Christmas night. And on the 29th, I'm flying to Oakland for a few days and will get to see lots of people I like and miss.

If I can just get past this evening...

Current Mood: stressed

It didn't snow here at all last winter, but it's snowing today!

The last time I saw snow on the ground was last winter when I was in NJ, but I can't remember the last time I saw snow falling. It's so pretty and quiet out there. And it's not very cold at all. In fact, it's hot in my apartment (I have no control over the temperature) and the air outside is nice and cool and clean, so I've actually opened my front door and opened the screen on the screen door so I can hear the snow and feel the cool clean air.

Meanwhile, I'm studying for my Evidence exam tomorrow morning. At least, it's supposed to be tomorrow morning. The snow may change that. Also, my apartment is a mess and my landlady is nagging me to get it cleaned. I was supposed to have someone come around Thanksgiving, but she kept not showing up when she said she would, so I gave up on her. I've emailed a few people today who were suggested by my landlady but haven't heard back yet. Hopefully, someone can come some time this week. I'm leaving for NJ on Saturday.

Current Mood: calm