Monday, November 28, 2011

Your silent support means the world to me, as does your tacit endorsement of all my behaviors.

Six discovery motions due Wednesday, along with a mock motion to suppress in the afternoon in which I get to cross the cop (exactly like what I will be doing in January or February fer realz) in addition to needing to have completed a rough outline for a motion in limine/memo for another trial in January to prevent the prosecution from using conclusory language from a police report.

And yet...I seem to be procrastinating tonight.

Some things never change.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

I don't make things difficult. That's the way they get, all by themselves.

So I got to see Katy Perry! :D I have no doubt in my mind that it was the biggest, most expensive production I have ever seen and probably will ever see. They only had 6 shows left and had already performed about 117 times this tour. O.o



There is no way you could have kept track of the number of costume changes--particularly since one number involved actual magic tricks where her dress would completely change in a matter of seconds.

There was some completely forgettable opening act followed by an annoying DJ (I still fail to understand how zero talent = payday, but anyway). There were three screens on stage, and there was a mini "film" that started the show and would play periodically throughout (read: bigger costume changes). It was just a Wizard of Oz take-off in which she (in the dream) loses Kitty Purry and runs off into Oz to rescue her. So the set was like a CandyLand on acid in Oz type deal...



First outfit! Someone was a little off key in Teenage Dream, but hey, guess she wasn't lip-syncing! ;) Also, those individual pinwheels on her dress up there all spin continuously. OF COURSE THEY DO.



Look! Kitty Purry! This was the end of the show and, sorry to give away the ending, but Kitty Purry was safe and sound.

But seriously, the money that went into this production, omfg. There was this thing hanging up in the rafters that was a giant pink cloud, but from below, it looked like something that was going to dump stuff on us. Nope! About 3/4 of the way through, they moved it up towards the stage and then down to her, then they strapped her onto it. And she stood on it with a fully-encrusted rhinestone guitar, then floated out over the audience to the way back of the auditorium. And sang a song back there! Oh wait, here's a pic...



This one's from a different show--she had a glittery dress on at ours. Gotta have some variety, I guess.

There were also Cirque du Soliel-style acrobatics going on during Pearl in flowy pink outfits. To keep her front and center during all that though, she wore what seemed to basically be a RHINESTONE MUMU while part of the stage broke away and raised her into the air alongside the acrobats.



At this point, the performers are just lifting her up--the stage hadn't started to separate yet. But it was impressive.

E.T. was easily the biggest laser show I'll ever see, Circle the Drain was very cool and hardcore but why there were giant pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling is a little beyond me. I think Firework was possible the most impressive.



As you might expect, yes, there were real fireworks. I guess when it's indoors it's called pyrotechnics, but it was very, very cool. It was the next-to-last number and the place still smelled like fireworks even after the grand finale (California Gurls).



Seen here, complete with dancing gingerbread men. (In the film at the end, when she "woke up" to find Kitty Purry safe, the film was B&W again. So a gingerbread man burst into the room, changing the film back to color while he announced, "Who wants cupcakes for breakfast?!" to her exclamation of, "Oh, Baker's Boy!" It was kinda fucked up. Anyway.)



And during California Gurls, near the end, they brought out the spray machine. At first I was like, um, there's a lot of electrical stuff, isn't there? And it's November in Connecticut, guys, wth. But though it looked incredibly like water, it was actually confetti-type material.



So a very cool show. Pretty good seats on the floor and people seemed to be fairly well-behaved for the most part. There were 11,000 people there and they had shut down the street with police blockades when we got out. We walked over to a bar for a beer to let the crowd disperse...



So that was definitely worth the 2 hour drive and the $50 ticket. I thought Hartford seemed like an ok city, but my friend--a CT native--warned me to "take my bullet-proof vest." I kind of mocked her, but the next morning she posted to my wall that a guy had been shot in the head about a mile from the venue. (It was on the other side of the highway in an arguably different neighborhood, but STILL.) Yeah, did you know Hartford and New Haven are actually a little sketch? It's the rest of CT that's your stereotypical white bread and country houses, apparently.

But now it's back to work. :( I have two major things due by Tuesday. One of them is related to the Rhode Island prison trip we made...our final memo is due, but on the bright side I was chosen to help write the rest of the final memo (for class we just write a portion of it) with two other people, one of whom I quite like. The other person tends to grate on me a little, but hopefully I can just deal with her via email. I was also chosen to present the final recommendation to the organization involved along with one other person, whom I quite like. So yay!

But seriously. Is it Christmas yet?

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Goddamn it, I knew I should've listened to my mother. I could've been a cosmetic surgeon, five hundred thou a year, up to my neck in tits and ass.

Ok, one ethics test down. I have no idea how that went. All I know is I don't want to do it again. I also feel like the older I get, the worse I am at multiple choice. At least it was a good barometer to warn me just how brutal and serious my bar studying will have to be. :/ Good! Times!

I left the test center in Brookline and stopped off at Parish to treat myself to a Zuni Roll for lunch. Parish is a delicious upscale sandwich place on Boylston (the yuppie part of town) where well-known/established chefs in the city have each created their own signature sandwich. I see other sandwiches come and go around me, but I cannot stray from my Zuni Roll: smoked turkey breast, crisp bacon, chopped scallions, dill Havarti cheese and cranberry-chipotle sauce wrapped in a flour tortilla and served warm with a side of homemade potato salad or cole slaw.

It's always insanely busy, so there's that. Even trying to get a solo seat at the bar, which is what I do 95% of the time, is not even close to a sure thing.

I came home and worked for about twenty minutes before succumbing to a (goddamn well earned, thank you) nap with the kitties for a little over an hour. I'm also supposed to Skype late tonight so a nap was no doubt in order. But I've been dutifully working on my international moot court problem. I still have so much to do on it, the research is positively daunting. A rough draft is due Monday and I assure you, even calling it a "rough draft" is pretty embarrassing.

Because I have am having difficulty finding suitable cases or incidents that reflect our fact pattern, I am inadvertently learning much about international strife, little of which I knew previously. Which is good, EVEN IF IT'S COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO MY WORK.

Tuesday morning I am going to go watch the hearing for a case to which I was previously assigned but had to withdraw. I've mentioned it previously, but that was so frustrating. I really hope the new lawyer does a good job, otherwise it will be hard to watch! But more likely, he'll do it well and make arguments I wouldn't have and I'll be all, oh. But I guess that's why they call it a clinic. :/

And in TEN DAYS?



Katy Perry, baby!! :D Even if it is in Connecticut. :/ I also lucked the fuck out and was not chosen to have my mock motion to suppress the day AFTER the show, but two weeks after. (Thanksgiving's in there. That is so fucked up. Thanksgiving in THREE WEEKS!? STOPPPPPPPPP.)