COMCAST KILLS ME

OK so last night in the wee hours I wrote this really great post all about the Supreme Court's newest decision on eminent domain. I included links, descriptions, etc. I even included a follow up article and a picture! I toiled in my humid room for over an hour and JUST as I clicked "publish post" the internet crapped out for a minute and I lost it all. Dennis alerted me to the fact that there is a "Recover post" option on blogger, but sadly this only gave me the first third of my work.

So, I just wanted to make sure I get brownie points for my effort, and as soon as I find the time to concentrate on anything besides my neverending job search and those 6 multistate subjects that I love so much I'll be back to try to recreate my manifesto.

COUPLE OF UNRELATED THINGS

So first off, I was cruising around my favorite blog haunts, reading and trying to get my mind to realize it needs to go to sleep before 5am and I came across this post from the CalBar studier. You'll remember I quite enjoy her mental rants about BarBri and the like from my previous post. Well today I found the following:

... taking a whole hour away from studying, unless it's something I really *enjoy*, kind of stresses me out. And she made the excellent point that the CalBar isn't about just memorizing stuff, you have to be able to absorb it and regurgitate it in a coherent way, and to do that you have to take care of yourself mentally. Because if you just study all the time, your brain is going to explode and you won't do well on the exam no matter how much you memorize.

And I was like, word.

So I'm going to try and remember that -- being fully prepared for the Exam requires not just studying, but constructive non-studying time as well. It's not just wasted time, it's time put toward the purpose of taking care of my brain so it will take care of me on the exam.

DAMN! This explains A LOT about my personal experience with the bar exam. Yea, yea, I know a bunch of people have been telling me it was all mental and not what I knew and didn't know for quite some time now. But now I have verification! I feel a bit better now.

Now, secondly, and COMPLETELY unrelated - a shout out to the guy from the Neatherlands who was searching for porn on Yahoo and came across my rant about gender inequality in Saudi Arabia. LOL Sorry you didn't find what you were looking for dude, but I hope you stayed long enough to take a look around and thanks for the laugh! I needed it.

LET'S ALL HELP M.I.T. MAKE SOME SCIENCE

Well it appears that Pete once again has his finger on the pulse of the pop culture of the day via this post. It's a nifty little survey for bloggers run by some guys out of M.I.T. trying to get their PhDs. It took bout 15-20 minutes and was completely painless.

An excerpt from the site:

This is a general social survey of the greater weblog community being conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our goal is to help understand the way that weblogs are affecting the way we communicate with each other. Specifically we are interested in issues of demographics, communication behaviors, experience with weblogs and other technology, and the meaning of various types of social links within the blogosphere.

The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete, and we are asking anyone with a weblog to participate. The larger the sample of individuals we can get, the better our picture of the community will be.

Check it out, click the link below, make some science!
Everyone else is doing it and you don't want to be left out now do you?!

(SOME) SAUDI ARABIAN MEN ARE PARANOID & ASININE

I was absolutely INCENSED when I read this article about the uproar that has been created in Saudi Arabia over the mere suggestion that women be allowed to drive. The man responsible, Consultative Council member Mohammad al-Zulfa, has been threatened and there have even been calls to revoke his Saudi nationality! His proposal was only that there be a study to look into the issue, and even then it was only to be concerning women over the age of 35 in cities. Younger women and women in rural areas would still have to rely on drivers or male relatives to get around.

The uproar may be astounding to outsiders. But in Saudi Arabia, where the religious establishment has the upper hand in defining women's freedoms, the issue touches on the kingdom's strict Islamic lifestyle.

Conservatives, who believe women should be shielded from strange men, say driving will allow a woman to leave home whenever she pleases and go wherever she wishes. Some say it will present her with opportunities to violate Islamic law, such as exposing her eyes while driving or interacting with strange men, like police officers or mechanics.

"Driving by women leads to evil," Munir al-Shahrani wrote in a letter to the editor of the Al-Watan daily. "Can you imagine what it will be like if her car broke down? She would have to seek help from men."

I have the utmost respect for other cultures and religions, however neither the law in Saudi Arabia nor Islam restrict women from driving. In this case it is religious zealots called fatwas who use religion as a justification for restricitng the most basic rights of the female gender. In Saudi Arabia women cannot travel without the written permission of a male family member, nor may they go out in public with covering themselves from head to toe in black cloaks. Saudia Arabia has the most strict dress code for women of all Islamic nations, even forcing most women to cover their eyes.

In 2005 it is still hard to believe that this type of thinking and behavior goes on. In Saudi Arabia women's births and deaths are not recorded. They are virtual non entities existing, seemingly, only to produce sons. Women can still be stoned to death for the "sin" of adultery or sex before marriage, even in instances of rape.

In some cases a father or husband can murder his wife or daughter if it has been decided that she has brought shame upon her family. In this extremist culture it is not surprising that women are not allowed to drive nor that the men who hold such a tight grip on their power over the citizens would not want to do anything that would jeopardize their lofty positions as the definers of all that is good or evil.

It is not surprising, but it is sad and abhorrent that women are denied education, proper medical treatment and even the right to have the sun shine on their faces. It is unfortunate that this is the facade Saudi Arabia puts up to the world. Their culture is rich and mystifying and wonderful in so many ways and yet the atrocities that women face as they are slowly crushed in the fists of religious fanatacism overshadows the true beauty of Arabia.

To learn more about the Saudi culture (the good and the bad) check out the book Princess by Jean Sasson and its two sequals, all about "Life behind the Veil".

LINKS AND STUFF

So, I have been fiddling with the links on the sidebar. It's nothing Earth shattering, but that fact that I managed to get them there and they work is amazing to me since I am HTML challenged. At the moment I have some of my favorite blogs up there, a news link, a link to Dennis' business Kenazz and a link to refer people to BLINGO (see previous post). I just changed my news link to FARK since I am positively addicted to it and I rarely read Google News.

By far the best addition is A Girl Walks into a bar (exam) which is this absolutely HYSTERICAL blog by a woman in California who is studying for the bar this summer. If you have ever suffered through that particular experience known as the bar exam (and preparation) you'll love the site. Not only is it funny, but it also gives some useful hints, updates and even a link to an online flashcard applet that is quite good. Check it out ... check them ALL out!

SOMETIMES IT TAKES SO LITTLE TO MAKE ME HAPPY

Today was a happy day. Why you ask? Because I got a new mouse [the computer kind, not the rodent kind] AND I downloaded my first ringtone, which was the theme to Law & Order.

The mouse thing has been a slight annoyance for years. I had an older mouse with annoyingly loud "clicking" and ball track movement and no center scroll wheel. Now I have the infra-red kind with the aforementioned scroll wheel and the clicking is blissfully quiet! This all occurred because the parentals finally got a new computer, which came with said mouse. My mother is so attached to her current electronic rodent [it has those annoying side buttons that let you navigate "back" and "forward" in your browser]. I suppose it could be worse, she could have a track ball. I CANNOT use those, I become positively spastic when I try to. So anyway I got this one - excellent!

The ringtone thing has also been one of those annoying things I dealt with cause, frankly how my phone sounds when it rings isn't a big priority. Sometimes I am just thrilled to be getting a call. However, first I had a phone that was older than dirt, then I upgraded so the only damn phone made by my provider that doesn't support DLing ringtones. This was all some time ago and apparently there have been some upgrades.

Anyway, I was poking around on Fark [my current obsession and it is ALL Pete's fault] and I came across a link that took me to Pimp Tones. Well it turns out they have the theme to Law & Order!! [They have Fraggle Rock and a bunch of other kewl stuff, but don't get me started.] It also turns out that they don't support DLs to Verizon - damn! However, this all prompted me to call my favorite phone lady [who is also a relative which is why I can ask her dumb phone questions at 10pm] and she told me how to use my phone to DL ringtones and LO & BEHOLD! they had L&O!!

So now, between the mouse and the phone I am one happy camper! This all goes to show how I am easily amused and def. NOT high maintenance. :)

WIN COOL PRIZES WHILE YOU SEARCH THE INTERNET

So, Pete alerted me via this blog entry that there was this kewl new site out there called Blingo. Apparently it's an excellent search engine [powered by Google] that awards prizes at random. The more searches you do a day [max of 10 entries] the better chance you have to win prizes.

The site says this:

How Blingo works:
1. We pick a bunch of random winning times.
2. Search at the right time and you win. No registration required.
3. Then tell us where to send your prize.

The ULTRA kewl part is that if YOU win a prize all your friends win the prize too! This of course requires registration, but it took like 5 seconds, no exaggeration.

You can increase your chances of winning by joining Blingo Friends. Invite as many friends as you want, and if one of your friends wins a prize by searching on Blingo we'll send you the same prize. That means if one of your friends wins an iPod, you win an iPod too.

If someone you invited wins a movie ticket, you get a movie ticket. If your friend wins a year of free movies from Blockbuster, or a Sony PlayStation Portable, or an iPod (all of which are actual prizes available on Blingo), so do you.

So .... be my Blingo friend so we can all win prizes!

You know you want to .... and anyone who knows me knows how I love to search the internet for random stuff so you could sign up and just by being my friend you could win prizes!!

The site even has its own BLOG if you want to find out more. Check it out!

THIS WOMAN IS MY HERO!

Apparently a woman in Peru bit off the testicle of a man who tried to rape her. The news item is short so I include it here in it's entirety:

Bizarre News Woman Bites The Balls Off Her Rapist May 26, 2005, 10:37:31

Thats Bizarre: A Peruvian women bit off a robber's testicle when he broke into her house and attempted to rape her.

Elizabeth Coz was disturbed on Monday (09.05.05) when Hemogenes Meza and his gang broke onto her ranch in a region in the remote Andes.

Meza is alleged to have tried to sexually assault the homeowner when she sank her teeth into his groin causing him need to have one of his testicles amputated.Surgeon Hugo Jaime said: "It looked like a dog bite. The man arrived with his right testicle dead and hanging by a thread ... there was nothing to do but cut it off."

The rest of the gang fled after Coz and her relatives began stoning them.

The feminist in me just wants to jump up and down and shout "YES YES!!! You go girl!"
The original link is here if you want to see for yourself.