Bored on a conference call; still thinking about public radio
 

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Oh, well, I'll get over it. What are you doing tonight? Meet you in Hell?

(editted to add: I'll be the one with the tiger tie)

Bored on a conference call; still thinking about public radio
 

Come on down. I'm already here!

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

And don't forget tartar sauce.

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

Start with Mayo, and always add pickles, chopped fine. Also feel free to add onions, hot peppers, various forms of herbs (often a bunch of mustard), some hot pepper sauce, various forms of pepper, perhaps some capers or pickled nasturtium seeds, and, most often (and in my mind most importantly) some good strong vinegar.

I like tartar sauce with a variety of hot peppers and/or with a variety of pickled things, not just cukes.

You see, emulsified fat can do all sorts of things!

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

you're thinking of aglio e olio. Particularly good on....well, just about everything, really.

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

You really should step away from the food network occasionally, but I'm curious - I've never had pickled nasturtium seeds. Is it like capers?
Do you get high - like morning glory seeds or whatever it is?

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

I AM away from the food network right now, dammit. Pickled nasturtiums are often even sold as capers, but have a somewhat different taste, and can be made at home (but I'll leave that for the next episode of Greedy Martha)...

No high, but I've got some of those recipes, too, if you like.

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

Do they require a trip to the hood for "ingredients?"

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

Gotta get those ingredients somewhere.

In the day, we used to have "pot luck suppers". Learned a lot of good recipes then.

does this mean I need to switch jobs?

this is bilmore of the day, right Paigow?

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

Well if it's anything like shroom tea, the end justifies the means.

white guy can't jump/black guy can't swim
 

why the fuck didn't you start carrying orange soda?

note: single line heckle

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

Isn't that a Beastie Boys song?

Bored on a conference call; still thinking about public radio
 

Master of my universe.

Mayo confections & NPR
 

In Utah and much of the Intermountain West, you can frequently get "fry sauce" for your fries at burger joints. It's equal parts ketchup and--you guessed it--mayonnaise.

And I think that's Silvia Poggioli--if you listen carefully you can hear how she pronounces both Gs.

tm

Mayo confections & NPR
 

That's secret sauce - right Aloha?
Or wait - was that thousand island dressing?
Damn, now I'm going to have to watch Fast Times again.

Mayo confections & NPR
 

You are correct, tm. I love listening to her sign off!

With all this talk about about Poggioli aioli and shrooms, I'm oddly looking forward to dinner but stuck here in this hell-hole -- where I am questioned about stupid shit like why didn't I use a re: line on an email to a client and why didn't I use six spaces between a heading and the body of a contractual provision instead of the standard 5-tab space. All this crap from a guy in a Tommy Bahama shirt, smothered in Aqua Velva. With squeaky shoes.

Hey, if anybody wants to work at a lifestyle lawfirm, lemme know.

Thanks for letting me vent. If I get out of here in time, I am going to rent a slasher movie, buy a fifth of JWB and crank call partners' wives pretending to be the latest "deponent".

heh. heh.

Why is this a problem?

I'm very shy.

Cue the cheesey music!
 

I used to have this dream but it only started after I was out of law school. Mine was the version where I completely forgot I'd even registered for the class until the night before the exam and it was required for graduation. (Before then I had the "in class and discover I'm in my underwear" dream.) I'd be so upset by the dream, that I'd have to remind myself that I graduated from college, graduated from law school, passed the bar and was working.

Maybe the dream was so real for me because it nearly happened in college. There was a bogus class required for my major. I decided to save money by taking it by correspondence course. Unfortunately the course materials sat around all year until halfway through the last semester and I was never going to finish it. I panicked and went to the prof who taught the course that semester. Fortunately the class had two components and the prof also felt it was bogus (a state requirement) so she let me into the course for the second part and gave me a paper to write for the first part.

I hate all you people who could skip class and ace exams.

Mayo confections & NPR
 

You appear to be living the transactional version of my life for the last several weeks. For months I have been running, without any assistance from those who nominally supervise me, a multiparty litigation with a potential nine figure downside for client. In the past few weeks GP has suddenly become interested in the case. Supervisory input over the last few weeks has taken the form of bitching about the use of a particular font in a stipulation, reminding me no fewer than 6 times in a single day that we are planning to videotape the deposition of plaintiff (despite my previously served notice of depo indicating same), and unilaterally scheduling a series of meetings that I can't miss for the week I had previously announced I would be taking a vacation.

more pie, indeed.

More Pie
 

And while I am ranting, what is the deal with the current law firm vogue for attorney photos on the firm's web site? Do the marketing people really think that clients are choosing a firm based upon the relative attractiveness of its lawyers?

What particularly frosts me is that my firm insists on posting the damn things, but won't hire a professional photographer to take them. So my photo, which I have periodically successfully petitioned to remove, only to have some marketing person "help" me by reposting the photo without my permission, is a passport photo, taken between law school classes at the local one hour photo. Not only does it no longer look like me, it is grossly unprofessional, as I eschewed haircuts during law school as a means of economizing.* And don't even get me started on the ridiculous, out of date, partner photos from the '70s.

OK, I feel better now.

* I know I can afford to have a better one taken, but the larger point is that I don't think the firm should be posting them at all. No plaintiffs' firm ever seems to have them, so they accomplish nothing beyond permitting opposing counsel to (maybe) recognize me in the hallway of the courthouse before I know who they are.

Mayo confections & NPR
 

Ugh. Do not get me started. My analogous story involves a partner who is bored and now calls me on my deal that I asked him to help on. The truth is I didn't really want his help b/c he is a micromanager but I needed assistance when my standby hands-off partner was on vacation and now I'm stuck with a guy who keeps calling me for updates despite the fact that the deal is stagnating. Fuck. And I'm sure he is killing the bill.

In other news, a girlfriend came out to me tonight. Not a big surprise because I knew she was at least bi, but still a little awkward. Funniest part was when her girlfriend told me that she was not a typical lesbian and I asked her what a typical lesbian was like. She was talking about butchness, she said. I told her my friend would never go for butch anyway. They make a very cute (or, for fb males, hot) couple.

Paging DS and Grinchy: Etiquette Q
 

I need some "etiquette" help -- but of the kind where DS talks about ways to politely be nasty to someone.

Situation: a former executive of a client had an affair with a co-worker with whom I worked on the client business.** Both were married with children. The woman's husband was a stay-at-home dad. Both got fired, though not necessarily because of the affair because inter-office affairs were rampant in the executive suite there. They have since married and put their exes through hell in their divorces.

I haven't seen either of them since they left the client but recently met the guy's ex-wife who is very nice. (She has gotten to the place where she realizes that, except financially, her life is better than it would have been if he hadn't left). This past weekend I was in the grocery store parking lot when someone called my name -- I was parked right next to the cheaters.

What I really wanted to do was to -- as they say in historical romances -- give them "the cut direct." But I'm a coward when it comes to confrontation so I made polite conversation for as short a time as humanly possible and split.

So, what would Miss Manners recommend one do when one encounters people whose behavior one thinks has been completely unacceptable? Is there a modern version of "the cut direct" or at least something that would appear on the surface as polite but convey the message that someone's behavior is not condoned?

Jack likes Jack
 

Jack Black was great in High Fidelity. Tenacious D is fantastic. I enjoyed the "Diary" he did for MTV. Here's a scene.

Jack goes to a McDonald's Drive Thru and orders a Double Cheeseburger, Filet-O-Fish, Super-sized Fries, and an Orange Soda. He adds the fish patty and some fries to the Double Cheeseburger....then he eats it.

"It's like a cow ate a fish... and then I ate that cow."

BRC, as I recall, in South Africa, the term "coloured" means anyone of mixed race. It was a middle category in the apartheid system, though not only for people of black/white backgrounds. Many Indians (including Gandhi for a time) lived/worked in South Africa.

In music news, I hope Verve continues to release those remix albums. The remix albums are just OK, but they also release companion "unmixed" albums of the original songs... with a list price of $4.98. You get Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn, Cal Tjader, Astrud Gilberto & company for slightly more than the price of the OM-like double-tall maccchiato.

So click the amazon.com link and buy Verve Unmixed vols. 1 & 2.

edited to add: I don't know if Jack Black's ode to orange soda in his MTV Diary is a meta-ironic critique of race relations in popular music or just a sign that he's 10 short years away from being diagnosed with diabetes.

white guy can't jump/black guy can't swim
 

edit: or sneak some in and sell it on the side

More Pie
 

I kind of like it, so you can figure out who the 12 people you're about to meet with are. But, agree, they should pay to have your photo done, not "bring a snapshot".

Anyway, the question arose at our firm: tell them you've been stalked before online, and you're worried abotu having your photo online. could they please remove it. maybe they'll make a stink. maybe they'll be smart and remove it. our firm never stinks about it; of course, they're also not so cheap that they don't hire a professional photographer (although they really need to do the prof. shoots more than once every 5 years--the website is starting to look like the law school face book, what with the professors fresh out of their clerkships, wearing qiana shirts and bellbottoms.)

More Pie
 

You can tell a lot from a photo. I LOVE the trend toward posting atty photos on firm websites because I can look up my opponent and find out what he/she looks like, which gives me a pretty good idea of what he'll be like. Here are some examples:

1. Young Guy in bow tie.
You know this cat is a tool and will be an annoyance. He's probably an arch conservative and fancies himself a "white shoe" attorney. Luckily, he's not very smart. No one under the age of 35 with brains wears a bow ties, and especially not on the company website photo.

2. 40 year old chick who looks like a librarian.
Her bad hair indicates she reads more Learned Hand than Vogue. Her dowdy dress suggests that she's in the library a lot more then you and is probably really proud of her clerkship for some fed judge. She can't argue for shit, but her papers will be fantastic. Luckily, she'll be so focused on minutia that she'll miss the major points and bore the judge. Write one argument in your papers, but make a slightly different oral argument before the judge. She'll be overly perpped in one direction and unable to turn on a dime.

3. Grey haired smiling 50ish moderately attractive male.
This guy's dangerous. He's smiling because he's tried many cases and he'll eat a young associate like yourself for lunch. You can't prep for any argument or trial with this cat - he's going to make it up as he goes and shift all over the place, and each argument he makes will be damn well delivered.

4. Cute to hot young associate.
This guy/girl is usually easy to deal with because like you, he/she has a full social calendar and probably doesn't give a shit about what happens in the case so long as he/she looks good to his/her employer and gets paid. This person isn't looking to make partner - you'll get every extension you request and he/she will never break your balls in a deposition. Chances are you will discuss personal lives and might find you have mutual friends.

5. Skinny pimply guy wearing collar two sizes too big.
This cat's a freak. He's unpredictable. You'll call him to prepa pretrial statement and you'll get dead silence from his end for long periods because he's staring at the ceiling thinking. He's smarter than you but probably can't bring his knowledge to the street. He'll act professorial at arguments and deps and will be accidentally rude often because he simply doesn't understand body language or social interaction. Ask for a jury trial if you're up against this guy. He'll alienate everyone.

6. Smirking guy.
This is you. You're smirking because you're thinking to yourself "What the fuck am I doing here getting a photo for a website? How did I wind up in this wierd gig? God, I wish they'd shoot this thing already so I can get back to my desk so I can play on chat boards and phone in briefs while waiting for something interesting to happen like a trial or an argument, which really isn't all that interesting, but sure beats sitting around the office exchanging fake pleasantries with that wierd guy with the too-big collar and that strange 40ish chick wearing the bad fitting business suit that makes her look like a nun... I wonder what she'd look like naked???"

S(I handed the firm my fraternity composite photo with a note "My hair will never again look this fucking lush")D

white guy can't jump/black guy can't float
 

And you call yourself a chef? You been too long sucking on your own chocolate salty balls.

white guy can't jump/black guy can't swim
 

Entirely rational. If someone came to my house and soiled a piece of good rye bread with it, I do not think I could bring myself to feed them again. And that's a sacred duty in my family.

Academic hi(gh)jinx
 

Honey, I lay props on you like MR lays tongue on the Mrs.'s slot c. While I will no longer serve as entertainement, I dont want to bore the peole with my hopeless crush on you. Baby, you seen em come and seem em go, but you are always atop the list.

Jack likes Jack
 

Coloured was the term for non-blacks in SA, which meant most of those with Indian heritage. They were the middle category, with more rights than blacks (which is to say: some). Blacks were in their own category, and were in that category based on criteria like the US used to use (curliness of hair etc.).

More Pie
 

Isn't this really the principle benefit? To size up whether to be a prick to opposing counsel before you meet them in person? If you want to have a chance to depose opposing counsel, pictures are invaluable.

Bored on a conference call; still thinking about public radio
 

You are the worst sock ever. Not even annoying, just a waste of space. I hope you are entertained bc I suspect nobody else is. Welcome to the Ignore List. I am sure JFUCK and his legion of socks will be happy to show you how to stick to a theme and really beat it to death and annoy the crap out of everyone, which is better than being boring.

Jack likes Jack
 

Actually,
Asians had their own category, above that of "coloureds" but not quite that of whites. "Coloured" did refer specifically to people of mixed race and/or people of Coisan heritage (one of the indigenous tribes of the Cape who had very light skin, who mixed quite a lot with the original Dutch settlers and their Malay slaves).

I believe the curly hair test was referred to as the "pencil test." If you stick a pencil in the hair at the side of the head and it doesn't fall out, the person is not white. (The S.A.s of my acquaintance were amazed to hear of the south's "paper bag test.") But if one of your parents is demonstrated to be coloured, so are you as a legal matter, how you look notwithstanding (though how you look matters most in terms of how you actually get treated).

BR(my S.A. friends were very amused that my dad fails the pencil test)C

More Pie
 

I enjoy the pics bc I like to know if the person I have been dealing with telephonically and may meet soon in person is hot. So I know what to wear, how to do makeup and hair. For the right guy, I might go sexy librarian or slightly too short skirt. I never look up the gals. THe voice says it all.

I have also noticed that certain firms have the hottest people. Cooley and Latham come to mind immediately.

Jack likes Jack
 

At one point in the 70's the Brady boys would have failed the pencil test. What is the "paper bag test"?


Anne
Depending on the humidity, I might fail the pencil test.

More Pie
 

Well, my recollection of interviews with Latham was something along the lines of Are You Hot, except that the partners weren't as good looking as Lorenzo Lamas. And certainly no Rachel Hunters in the mix.

Paging DS and Grinchy: Etiquette Q
 

The modern version of the cut direct is the cut direct. It involves glaring and saying "I do not know you, sir" and walking on. The cut indirect, which is less impressive but easier on the nerves, is to entirely fail to see them, stare over their left shoulder and say "excuse me" and walk on. You cut someone because you have no respect for them, so you will not even appear superficially polite (though to act so is within the bounds of etiquette).

Now, if what you want is to maintain social contact & pretend to be all nice but make the two of them writhe with agony over their wrongs, that is very different, and considerably more complicated. The basic method is to maintain contact but bring up excruciating things in a way that can't be brought back to you. Do either of them have children estranged over their divorces? Ask how they are frequently. Friendly with the guy's wife? Mention you saw her and she looked wonderful/ successful/ sexually satisfied. Engage in chit-chat about the qualifications necessary for a good employee/ partner/ chef/ whatever and mention the importance of personal fidelity and loyalty as indicators of worth.

But I'm not sure any of that is worth the effort. You don't seem to want a social relationship with these people, and their affront wasn't directed at you, so I'd just stick to shallow, casual acquaintanceship and not spend any more effort or energy on them than you have to.

Jack likes Jack
 

Paper bag test was: if you were as dark or darker than a paper bag, you were black. If you weren't, you were just "tan," I guess.