Ice

Woke up to a lot of ice outside this morning. Here are a couple pics of the icy deck.

Man pays bill with spider drawing

I don't know if this is real or not, but it's still funny: read it.

Hawk

We've got a couple of hawks living in the trees around our house, they're good size suckers. I've been trying to get a decent picture of one for a few weeks now, but they're always way up in the trees. I did manage to get this shot yesterday. The quality's not great, since he was about 200 feet away.

DVR

With our new Verizon service we have free DVR and premium channels for a short period. DVR is pretty neat, I'm a big fan of pausing the TV. One thing that surprised me though is that when you set it up to record a certain show at a certain time, it simply records whatever is on the channel at that time, regardless of whether the show you want is on. For example, we set it to record the Survivor finale on Sunday night, but it was delayed 30 minutes by football. I thought the DVR would adjust and start recording when Survivor started, but it just turned on at 8 and recorded until 10. We did catch the end of Survivor, since we also recorded the reunion show. DVR is cool, but we don't really watch enough TV to justify the expense.

We've checked out some movies on the premium channels. Michael Clayton (good), The Simpsons (not funny), Talladega Nights (sometimes funny), Edward Scissorhands (better than I remember).

Exam day

Today is my first final--food and drug law. The course focused mainly on regulation of pharmaceuticals and the drug industry. Next up tomorrow is trusts and estates, followed by securities regulation on Monday and then political and civil rights later that week.

First-year students have their big torts exam today. I remember being in that position just a couple of years ago, being so nervous and having memorized all of my notes. Now in my third and final year, the jitters are still there but the fear is not.

Checks and balances

Some people on the left are upset that Obama hasn't appointed many liberals to his cabinet yet. That's exactly why I voted for him--although some want to label him as a wild liberal, he's generally a pragmatic person who wants to make rational, informed decisions. He doesn't base his choices on party orthodoxy, and he's willing to work with Republicans to get things done.

The fact that Democrats control both Congress and the White House isn't a good thing in my view. There's a real danger that they'll ram through legislation just because they can; the party that's in total power often seems to end up self-destructing through corruption and hubris. Hopefully Obama will be a check on that.

More history

I finished reading 1776 over the weekend--fantastic book. You may not think you're interested in the Revolutionary War or George Washington, but after reading this book you will be. McCullough's retelling of the dramatic events of that year is the main draw, but I also couldn't get enough of his descriptions of 18th century America. He's just a great storyteller.

Following up on this, next up on the reading list is Angel in the Whirlwind.

Is this copyright infringement?

Guitarist Joe Satriani has sued Coldplay for copyright infringement. You be the judge.




They're obviously very similar, but the melody is so generic it's hard to believe Satriani can win this.

Where there's a will...

It's just about time for finals here. I really liked my Trusts & Estates class--I can see myself settling down in a few years and opening up small firm to just make wills.