Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
either way, i'll break your heart someday
Cuz' either way
I'll break your heart someday...
But leaving you is the last thing on my mind
So when I go
Baby kiss real slow so I don't forget my way back home
I'll break your heart someday...
But leaving you is the last thing on my mind
So when I go
Baby kiss real slow so I don't forget my way back home
- Augustana
Remembering Paul Newman
It's sad that Paul Newman just passed away. He was a great actor and an even better human being. I think more than his movies, I'll remember his happy marriage of 50 years to Joanna Woodwards. That in itself is pretty inspiring.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Chris Rock on his vote
Rock, an avid supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, spoke with CNN's Larry King on Thursday. He said Obama is more grounded with your average American -- not somebody like McCain with "12 houses."
"The other guy [McCain] can lose five houses," Rock said.
"I'll go with the guy with one house. The guy with one house is scared about losing his house."Does McCain always agree with Bush?
Does McCain almost always agree with Pres. Bush?.
The Statement:
At a presidential debate Friday, September 26, in Oxford, Mississippi, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama attempted to tie Republican opponent Sen. John McCain to President Bush. "John, it's been your president, who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time, who presided over this increase in spending," he said.
The Facts:
According to an analysis by Congressional Quarterly, McCain has voted for bills favored by President Bush 90 percent of the time. The nonpartisan publication, which has analyzed voting by members of Congress since 1953, said the report took into account all legislation that Bush had taken a clear position on. It spans from the beginning of Bush's term to Congress's recess in August.
In the 100-member Senate, 14 current members — all Republicans — voted with Bush more than 90 percent of the time, according to the report. Six others have a 90 percent rating like McCain's. The report shows Obama voting with Bush 40 percent of the time and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, voting with Bush 52 percent of the time during the course of his presidency.
Obama surrogates also frequently say McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time. This is a reference to the Republican senator's record in 2007. That was the highest percentage in the seven years studied. In 1995, McCain voted with Bush 77 percent of the time — his lowest percentage in those years. "The president and I agree on most issues," McCain said in a May 22, 2003 interview on Fox's "Your World with Neil Cavuto." "There was a recent study that showed that I voted with the president over 90 percent of the time, higher than a lot of my even Republican colleagues."
Verdict: True
Time Magazine's Grading of the Obama-McCain Debate
John McCain
Substance: His arguments were hard to follow at the beginning, but he found his voice as the debate progressed, although he never seemed fully in control of his message. He had plenty to say about the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Russia, but often bogged down his own answers when trying to unfurl quips and soundbites. Stuck with bumper sticker slogans on the economy, and while he got a bit more detailed on foreign policy, he stayed at his usual level of abstraction. If he truly knows more about the world than Obama, he didn't show it in this debate.
Grade: B-
Style: Cluttered, jumpy, and often muddled. Frequent coughing early on helped neither his arguments nor his image. Jokes about being deaf and anecdotes about Normandy and George Shultz seemed ill-advised — even his pen was old. His presentation was further hindered by his wandering discussion of the differing heights of North and South Koreans and his angry assertion about how well he knows Henry Kissinger. Fell into the classic politician's trap of inserting familiar stump speech applause lines into debate responses — which only works if done with enthusiasm and clarity (and if received by applause — a big No-No in Lehrer's auditorium, which the audience obeyed seriously and silently). Keenly aware of the grand, grave occasion, McCain wavered between respectful and domineering, and ended up awkward and edgy.
Grade: C-
Offense: Emphasized his bread and butter issues of taxes and spending, and hit Obama on his failure to visit Iraq and his expressed willingness to meet with dictators. But while mocking his opponent on a few occasions, which reflected his acute disrespect for Obama, he did so in an insufficiently sharp and detailed manner — and unevenly worked elements of his rival's record into his attacks. Still he was utterly confident about his own experience, knowledge, and policies, even when tripped by his own tongue and distracted by the strains of debate practice. The main problem: Obama's obvious preparation and sharp answers contradicted McCain's frequent claims that the Democrat was uninformed and "didn't understand" key issues.
Grade: C+
Defense: He managed to ignore most of Obama's jibes, but was eventually baited into giving an extended answer about his policy differences with President Bush, after his opponent repeatedly mentioned McCain's regular support of Bush's budgets. Was visibly riled when clashing with Obama over a variety of issues, including Iraq, sanctions, and spending. He also chose to boast about Sarah Palin (although not by name) as his maverick partner, who, after her shaky week, may no longer be his ace in the hole.
Grade: B-
Overall: McCain was McCain — evocative, intense, and at times emotional, but also vague, elliptical, and atonal. Failed to deliver his "country first versus Obama first" message cleanly, even when offered several opportunities. Surprisingly, did not talk much about "change," virtually ceding the dominant issue of the race.
Overall grade: B-
Barack Obama
Substance: Quite manifestly immersed in the past, present, and future details of policy, and eager to express his views, which have been expanded, honed, and solidified during the last 18 months of hard campaigning. Still, he did avoid the nitty-gritty details of policy positions in favor of broad principles and references to working Americans, thereby not presenting the kind of specifics that some voters are waiting to hear from him.
Grade: B+
Style: Polished, confident, focused. Fully prepared, and able to convey a real depth of knowledge on nearly every issue. He was unhurried, and rarely lost his train of thought even when the debate wended and winded — and uttered far fewer of his trademark, distracting, "ums." At times, however, Obama revealed the level of his preparation by faltering over a rehearsed answer. He seemed to deliberately focus on the moderator and the home audience, with McCain as an afterthought — except when on the attack. Chose to avoid humor, for the most part, in favor of a stern demeanor, and in the process, came off as cool as a cucumber.
Grade: A
Offense: Linking McCain to Bush in his very first answer, he kept it up as his primary line of attack. Forcefully hit McCain for his early support of the Iraq War. Though he never drew blood, he did keep McCain a bit off balance, often with clever references to McCain's recent statements.
Grade: B
Defense: Had a reasonable answer for every charge that came his way — with little anger, bluster, or anxiety. Often interrupting McCain attacks with swift explanations and comebacks, he managed to spin accusations of being liberal as evidence of his relentless opposition to George Bush (in replies that were clearly planned). Offered a rather clumsy alternative to McCain's well-known, moving story of wearing the bracelet of a soldier lost in Iraq (a gift from the soldier's mother), with a story about a bracelet of his own. Fearless, without condescension, he attempted the gracious move of agreeing with or complimenting a McCain position, occasionally to his own detriment.
Grade: A-
Overall: Went for a solid, consistent performance to introduce himself to the country. He did not seem nervous, tentative, or intimidated by the event, and avoided mistakes from his weak debate performances during nomination season (a professorial tone and long winded answers). Standing comfortably on the stage with his rival, he showed he belonged — evocative of Reagan, circa 1980. He was so confident by the end that he reminded his biggest audience yet that his father was from Kenya. Two more performances like that and he will be very tough to beat on Election Day.
Overall grade: A-
Points in the Obama-McCain debate.
On government spending:
McCain said he would consider a spending freeze on everything but defense, veterans affairs and entitlement programs in order to cut back on government spending.
Obama disagreed, saying, "The problem is, you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.
"There are some programs that are very important that are currently underfunded," Obama said.
He agreed that the government needs to cut spending in some areas, but he said other areas, such as early childhood education, need more funding.
McCain repeated his call to veto every bill with earmarks.
Obama said the country "absolutely" needs earmark reform but said, "the fact is, eliminating earmarks alone is not a recipe for how we are going to get the middle class back on track."
On the bailout proposal:
Obama said that the United States was facing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
McCain said he was encouraged that Republicans and Democrats were working together to solve the crisis.
Obama refused to be pinned down on whether he would support a $700 billion plan proposed by President Bush's top economic advisers, saying the final details of the proposal were not known.
McCain said he hoped to be able to vote for it.
On the likelihood of another terrorist attack:
McCain that another attack on the scale of the September 11 hijackings is "much less likely" now than it was the day after the terrorist attacks.
"America is safer now than it was on 9/11," he said, "But we have a long way to go before we can declare America safe."
Obama agreed that the United States is "safer in some ways" but said the country needed to focus more on issues such as nuclear non-proliferation and restoring America's image in the world.
On relations with Russia:
Obama called for a re-evaluation of the United States' approach to Russia in light of the country's recent military action in the Caucasus.
"You cannot be a 21st-century superpower and act like a 20th-century dictatorship," he said.
McCain accused Obama of responding naively to Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia last month by calling on both sides to exercise restraint.
McCain said he would support the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine in NATO.
On Iran:
McCain said Iranian nuclear weapons would be an "existential threat to the state of Israel" and would encourage other countries in the Middle East to seek nuclear weapons as well.
"We cannot allow another Holocaust," he said.
Obama agreed that the United States "cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran," calling for tougher sanctions from a range of countries including Russia and China.
McCain called for a new "league of democracies" to stand firm against Iran.
On Iraq:
McCain said the next president will have to decide when and how to leave Iraq and what the United States will leave behind.
The Republican candidate said that the war had been badly managed at the beginning but that the United States was now winning, thanks to a "great general and a strategy that succeeded."
"Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq," McCain said.
Obama responded, "that's not true; that's not true."
He blasted McCain as having been wrong about the war at the start, saying McCain had failed to anticipate the uprising against U.S. forces and violence between rival religious groups in the country.
"At the time when the war started, you said it was quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were," Obama said, citing the key White House policy justifying the 2003 invasion.
"You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong," he said.Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
DLSU v. ADMU exams (joke lang to, okay!)
Have you ever wondered how you would have fared as either a LaSallite or an Atenean?
Here's your chance to find out! Take either the La Salle Final Exams or the Ateneo Final Exams.
Or take both and find out what makes each one tick.
ATENEO de MANILA UNIVERSITY FINAL EXAMINATIONS
Instructions:Read each question carefully.
Answer all questions.
Time Limit: 4 hours.
Begin immediately.
1. HISTORY
Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious, and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific.
2. MEDICINE
You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have 15minutes.
3. PUBLIC SPEAKING
Twenty-five hundred riot-crazed aborigines are storming theclassroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.
4. BIOLOGY
Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis.
5. MUSIC
Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.
6. PSYCHOLOGY
Based on you degree of knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following:
Alexander of Aphrodisias
Rameses II
Gregory of Nicea
Hammurabi.
Support your evaluations with quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate.
7. SOCIOLOGY
Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.
8. MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
Define management. Define science. How do they relate? Why? Create a generalized algorithm to optimize all managerial decisions. Assuming an 1130 CPU supporting 50 terminals, each terminal to activate your algorithm; design the communications interface and all necessary control programs.
9. ENGINEERING
The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed in a box on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel is apropriate. Be prepared to justify your decisions.
10. ECONOMICS
Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas:
Cubism
Donatist Controversy
Wave Theory of Light
Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question.
11. POLITICAL SCIENCE
There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects; if any.
12. EPISTEMOLOGY
Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your position.
13. PHYSICS
Explain the nature of matter. Include in you answer an evaluation of the impact of the development of mathematics on science.
14. PHILOSOPHY
Sketch the development of human thought; estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any kind of thought.
15. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.
***EXTRA CREDIT***
Define the universe; give three examples.
DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY FINAL EXAMS (Take Home)Time Limit: 3 Weeks
1. What language is spoken in France?
2. Give a dissertation on the ancient Babylonian Empire with particular reference to architecture, literature, law and social conditions or give the first name of Pierre Trudeau?
3. Would you ask William Shakespeare to:
a. Build a bridge
b. Sail the ocean
c. lead an army or
d. WRITE A PLAY
4. What religion is the Pope?
a. Jewish
b. Catholic
c. Hindu
d. Polish
e. Agnostic(check only one)
5. Metric conversion. How many feet is 0.0 meters?
6. What time is it when the big hand is on the 12 and thelittle hand is on the 5?
7. How many commandments was Moses given? (approximately)
8. What are people in America's far north called?
a. Westerners
b. Northerners
c. Southerners
9. Spell -- Bush, Carter, and Clinton
BUSH: _ _ _ _
CARTER: _ _ _ _ _ _
CLINTON: _ _ _ _ _ _ _
10. Six kings of England have been called George, last one being George the Sixth. Name the previous five.
11. Were does rain come from?
a. Macy's
b. 7-11
c. Canada
d. the sky
12. Can you explain Einstein's Theory of relativity?
a. yes
b. no
c. maybe
d. I don't know
13. What are coat hangers used for?
14. The Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem for what country?
15. Explain Le Chateliers Principle of Dynamic Equilibrium or spell your name in BLOCK LETTERS.
16. Where is the basement in a three story building located?
17. Advanced math. If you have three apples how many apples do you have?
18. What does NBC (National Broadcasting Corp.) stand for?
19. The DLSU tradition for excellence in education began when (approximately)?
a. B.C.
b. A.D.
c. still waiting
***You must answer three or more questions in order to graduate Magna Cum Laude.***
Here's your chance to find out! Take either the La Salle Final Exams or the Ateneo Final Exams.
Or take both and find out what makes each one tick.
ATENEO de MANILA UNIVERSITY FINAL EXAMINATIONS
Instructions:Read each question carefully.
Answer all questions.
Time Limit: 4 hours.
Begin immediately.
1. HISTORY
Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious, and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific.
2. MEDICINE
You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have 15minutes.
3. PUBLIC SPEAKING
Twenty-five hundred riot-crazed aborigines are storming theclassroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.
4. BIOLOGY
Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis.
5. MUSIC
Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.
6. PSYCHOLOGY
Based on you degree of knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following:
Alexander of Aphrodisias
Rameses II
Gregory of Nicea
Hammurabi.
Support your evaluations with quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate.
7. SOCIOLOGY
Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.
8. MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
Define management. Define science. How do they relate? Why? Create a generalized algorithm to optimize all managerial decisions. Assuming an 1130 CPU supporting 50 terminals, each terminal to activate your algorithm; design the communications interface and all necessary control programs.
9. ENGINEERING
The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed in a box on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel is apropriate. Be prepared to justify your decisions.
10. ECONOMICS
Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas:
Cubism
Donatist Controversy
Wave Theory of Light
Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question.
11. POLITICAL SCIENCE
There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects; if any.
12. EPISTEMOLOGY
Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your position.
13. PHYSICS
Explain the nature of matter. Include in you answer an evaluation of the impact of the development of mathematics on science.
14. PHILOSOPHY
Sketch the development of human thought; estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any kind of thought.
15. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.
***EXTRA CREDIT***
Define the universe; give three examples.
DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY FINAL EXAMS (Take Home)Time Limit: 3 Weeks
1. What language is spoken in France?
2. Give a dissertation on the ancient Babylonian Empire with particular reference to architecture, literature, law and social conditions or give the first name of Pierre Trudeau?
3. Would you ask William Shakespeare to:
a. Build a bridge
b. Sail the ocean
c. lead an army or
d. WRITE A PLAY
4. What religion is the Pope?
a. Jewish
b. Catholic
c. Hindu
d. Polish
e. Agnostic(check only one)
5. Metric conversion. How many feet is 0.0 meters?
6. What time is it when the big hand is on the 12 and thelittle hand is on the 5?
7. How many commandments was Moses given? (approximately)
8. What are people in America's far north called?
a. Westerners
b. Northerners
c. Southerners
9. Spell -- Bush, Carter, and Clinton
BUSH: _ _ _ _
CARTER: _ _ _ _ _ _
CLINTON: _ _ _ _ _ _ _
10. Six kings of England have been called George, last one being George the Sixth. Name the previous five.
11. Were does rain come from?
a. Macy's
b. 7-11
c. Canada
d. the sky
12. Can you explain Einstein's Theory of relativity?
a. yes
b. no
c. maybe
d. I don't know
13. What are coat hangers used for?
14. The Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem for what country?
15. Explain Le Chateliers Principle of Dynamic Equilibrium or spell your name in BLOCK LETTERS.
16. Where is the basement in a three story building located?
17. Advanced math. If you have three apples how many apples do you have?
18. What does NBC (National Broadcasting Corp.) stand for?
19. The DLSU tradition for excellence in education began when (approximately)?
a. B.C.
b. A.D.
c. still waiting
***You must answer three or more questions in order to graduate Magna Cum Laude.***
attack of the giant woman
Guy #1: So I basically came up with a question that doesn't have an answer. Would you do Jessica Simpson, I mean really Jessica Simpson, but the catch is she is the size of Shaquille O'Neal? Like 300 pounds and 7 feet tall but still really truly Jessica Simpson.
Guy #2: You're right, I don't have an answer.
Guy #1: Yeah, neither did Kevin when I asked him last night. What a mind blow...
Guy #2: You're right, I don't have an answer.
Guy #1: Yeah, neither did Kevin when I asked him last night. What a mind blow...
--6 Train
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Conan O'Brien's Speech to the Harvard Class of 2000
I’d like to begin by thanking the class marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000. So I was reluctant to show up. I’m going to start before I really begin by announcing my one goal this afternoon. I want to be half as funny as tomorrow’s Commencement speaker, moral philosopher and economist Amartya Sen. That’s the job. Must get more laughs than seminal wage-price theoretician. By the way, enjoy that. Bring a calculator. It’s going to be a nerd fest.
Students of the Harvard class of 2000, 15 years ago I sat where you sit now. And I thought exactly what you are now thinking. What’s going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? Still have 24 hours. Roommate’s mom very hot. Swear she’s checking me out. There was that Rob Lowe movie.
Being here today, on a sincere note, is very special for me. I do miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square. Let me tell you, (you don’t know this) Harvard Square is unique. Nowhere else in the world will you find a man wearing a turban and a Red Sox jacket working in a lesbian bookstore. I’m just glad my dad’s working.
It’s particularly sweet for me to be here today because—this is true—when I graduated I wanted very badly to be a Class Day speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So if you’ll indulge me I’d like to read a portion of that speech. This is the actual speech from 15 years ago. “Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic A-ha tune which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold. I believe that one day a simple governor from a small southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority. I believe that justice will prevail and one day the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule. I believe that one day a high-speed network of interconnected computers will spring up worldwide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chitchat and pornography. And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network seen by millions of people at night which I will use to reenact crimes and and help catch at-large criminals.” Then I had a section on the death of Wall Street, but you don’t need to hear about that.
The point is that although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a demigod if you will, and potential husband material, I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived at Holworthy Hall as a student much like you. I was, without exaggeration—this is true—the ugliest picture in the freshman facebook. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was for their records, so I jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue shot. To make matters worse, when the facebook came out, they put my picture right next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was expected to join the class of ‘85, but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of Dynasty. Folks, my photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident.
You see, in those days, I was 6 feet 4 inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. True. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model, and according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.
After freshman year, I moved to Mather House. Mather House, incidentally, was designed by the same firm that built Hitler’s bunker. In fact, if Hitler had conducted the war from Mather House, he would have shot himself a year earlier. Saved us a lot of trouble.
1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I had my Class Day, you students would have been seven years old. Seven years old! You realize what that means? Back then I could have beaten any of you in a fight. And I mean really badly. Like no contest at all. If anyone here has a time machine, seriously, I will kick your seven-year-old butt right now.
A lot has happened in 15 years though. When you think about it, we come from completely different worlds. When I graduated in 1985, we watched movies starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come from a time when we huddled around the TV set and watched the Cosby Show on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a show called Cosby on CBS. In 1985 we drove cars with driver’s-side air bags. But if you had told us that one day there would be passenger-side air bags, we’d have burned you for witchcraft.
Of course I think there is some common ground between us. I remember well the great uncertainty of this day, the anxiety. Many of you are justifiably nervous about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard and hurling yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard grad school, a plum job in your father’s firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex card and then a plum job at your father’s firm. Let me assure you that the knowledge you gained here at Harvard is a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me, your education is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read the Merchant of Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the island of Spain. Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in Russia, or that guy in South America—you know, the guy—will be with you for the rest of your life.
There’s also sadness today. A feeling of loss that you’re leaving Harvard forever. Let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard fundraising committee will be on your ass until the day you die.
This is true. I know for a fact that right now a member of the alumni association is at the Mount Auburn Cemetery shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he has a brass toe ring and they aim to get it. These people just raised $2.5 billion and they only got through the Bs in the alumni directory. Here’s basically how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal when you’re tired and most vulnerable, and a voice asks you for money. Knowing—you’ve read in the paper—that they just raised $2.5 billion, you ask, “What do you need it for?” There is a long pause, and the voice on the other end of the line says, “We don’t need it, we just want it.” (Sinister laugh).
Let me see—by your applause—who here wrote a thesis? That’s nice. A lot of hard work went into that thesis. And no one is ever going to care. I wrote a thesis—this is true, I don’t lie—“Literary Progeria in the Works of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.” Let’s just say that during my discussions with Pauly Shore, it doesn’t come up much. For three years after graduation I wanted to show it to everyone, and so I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car, so that I could show it to a policeman in case I was pulled over.
What else can you expect in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain. Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In those situations, the correct response to, “Where did you go to school?” is “School? I never had much in the way of book learnin’ and such.” And then get in your BMW and get the hell out of there. Go.
You see, kids, you’re in for a lifetime of “And you went to Harvard?” Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction, and it’s “And you went to Harvard?” Ask at the hardware store how the jumper cables work, and hear “And you went to Harvard?” Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants, and it’s “And you went to Harvard?” Get your head stuck in your niece’s doll house ‘cause you want to see what it’s like to be a giant, and it’s “Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard?”
So you really know what’s in store for you after Harvard, I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I’m going to tell it simply, I’m going to tell it honestly, because, first of all, I think my perspective may give many of you hope, and, secondly, it’s such a cool, amazing rush to be in front of 6,000 people and just talk about yourself. It’s just great. It’s so cool. And I can take my time.
You see, kids, after graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles. I got a three-week contract at a small cable show. I got a $380-a-month apartment, a terrible dump, and I bought a 1977 Isuzu Opal, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year because they found out that technically it’s not a car. Quick tip, graduates—no four-cylinder used vehicle should have a racing stripe.
So I worked on that show for about a year, feeling pretty good about myself, when one day they told me that they were letting me go. I was fired. I hadn’t saved any money. So I tried to get another job in television as best I could and couldn’t find one. So with nowhere else to turn-true story—I went to a temp agency and filled out a questionnaire. I made damn sure that they knew I had been to Harvard, that I had written this thesis, and that I expected the very best treatment. And so the next day I was sent to the Santa Monica branch of Wilson’s House of Suede and Leather.
When you have a Harvard degree, and you are working at Wilson’s House of Suede and Leather, you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose graduate school. You see their faces everywhere—in coffee cups, in fish tanks, you think you’re going crazy, and they’re always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man in good conscience would ever wear.
I tried a lot of things during this period. Acting in corporate infomercials. Serving drinks in a nonequity theater. I even took a job entertaining at a seven year-old’s birthday party. In desperate need of work, I put together some sketches and scored a job at the fledgling Fox network as a writer and performer for a brainy show called the “Wilton North Report.” I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a way it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when four weeks later news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into spontaneous applause.
Eventually, though, I got a big break. I had submitted along with my writing partner a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live, and after a year and a half they read it, and they gave us a two-week tryout. The two weeks turned into two seasons, and I felt, hey, this is success, I’m successful now. Successful enough to write a TV pilot for an original sitcom. When the network decided to make it, feeling good, I left Saturday Night Live.
This TV show was going to be groundbreaking. It was going to resurrect the career of TV’s Batman, Adam West. It was going to be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It was going to change all the rules. And here’s what happened. When the pilot aired, it was the second-lowest-rated television show of all time. It is actually tied with a test pattern they show up in Nova Scotia.
So I was 28 and, once again, no job. I had good writing credits in New York, but I was filled with disappointment and I had no idea what I was going to do next. And that is when the Simpsons saved my life. I got a job there and started writing episodes about Springfield getting a monorail or Homer going to college. I was finally putting my Harvard education to good use—writing dialogue for a man who is so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own heart beat. Life was good.
And then an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way, a chance to audition for host of the new “Late Night” show. I took the opportunity very seriously, but at the time—I have to be honest—I had the relaxed confidence of someone who knew he had no real shot, so I couldn’t fear losing a great job that I could never hope to have. And I think that actually that attitude made the difference.
I will never forget being in the Simpsons recording basement that morning when the phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a firelane. But a week later I got another call and got the job. So this, finally, was undeniably it. The truly life-altering break that I had always dreamed of. And so I went to work. I gathered all my funny friends and poured all my years of comedy experience into building the show over the summer. I gathered the talent, figured out the sensibility, found Max, found Andy, found my people. We debuted on September 13, 1993, and I was really happy, really happy, with our effort. I felt like I had seized the moment, that I had put my very best foot forward.
And this was what the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom Shales, wrote in the Washington Post. “O’Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He has dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He is one of the whitest white men ever. O’Brien is a switch on the guest who won’t leave: he’s the host who should never have come. Let the Late Show with Conan O’Brien become the late Late Show, and may the host return to whence he came.” There’s more, but it gets kind of mean.
Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive, and, to be honest with you, it hurt like you would not believe. But I’m telling you all this for a reason. I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve had a lot of failure. I’ve looked good. I’ve looked bad. I’ve been praised. And I’ve been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. I’ve dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed, your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Success is a lot like a bright white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you’re desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it.
I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of the Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet every failure was freeing, and today I’m as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good. So that’s what I wish for all of you—the bad as well as the good. Fall down. Make a mess. Break something occasionally. Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be. And remember that the story is never over.
If you’ll indulge me for just a second, I’d like to read a little something from just this year. “Somehow, Conan O’Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the late-night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard, and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possibly the greatest host ever.”
Ladies and gentlemen, class of 2000, I wrote that this morning. As proof that when all else fails, you always have delusion. I will go now to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought. If you can laugh at yourself, loud and hard, every time you fall, people will think you’re drunk. Thank you.
Students of the Harvard class of 2000, 15 years ago I sat where you sit now. And I thought exactly what you are now thinking. What’s going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? Still have 24 hours. Roommate’s mom very hot. Swear she’s checking me out. There was that Rob Lowe movie.
Being here today, on a sincere note, is very special for me. I do miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square. Let me tell you, (you don’t know this) Harvard Square is unique. Nowhere else in the world will you find a man wearing a turban and a Red Sox jacket working in a lesbian bookstore. I’m just glad my dad’s working.
It’s particularly sweet for me to be here today because—this is true—when I graduated I wanted very badly to be a Class Day speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So if you’ll indulge me I’d like to read a portion of that speech. This is the actual speech from 15 years ago. “Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic A-ha tune which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold. I believe that one day a simple governor from a small southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority. I believe that justice will prevail and one day the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule. I believe that one day a high-speed network of interconnected computers will spring up worldwide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chitchat and pornography. And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network seen by millions of people at night which I will use to reenact crimes and and help catch at-large criminals.” Then I had a section on the death of Wall Street, but you don’t need to hear about that.
The point is that although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a demigod if you will, and potential husband material, I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived at Holworthy Hall as a student much like you. I was, without exaggeration—this is true—the ugliest picture in the freshman facebook. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was for their records, so I jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue shot. To make matters worse, when the facebook came out, they put my picture right next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was expected to join the class of ‘85, but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of Dynasty. Folks, my photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident.
You see, in those days, I was 6 feet 4 inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. True. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model, and according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.
After freshman year, I moved to Mather House. Mather House, incidentally, was designed by the same firm that built Hitler’s bunker. In fact, if Hitler had conducted the war from Mather House, he would have shot himself a year earlier. Saved us a lot of trouble.
1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I had my Class Day, you students would have been seven years old. Seven years old! You realize what that means? Back then I could have beaten any of you in a fight. And I mean really badly. Like no contest at all. If anyone here has a time machine, seriously, I will kick your seven-year-old butt right now.
A lot has happened in 15 years though. When you think about it, we come from completely different worlds. When I graduated in 1985, we watched movies starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come from a time when we huddled around the TV set and watched the Cosby Show on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a show called Cosby on CBS. In 1985 we drove cars with driver’s-side air bags. But if you had told us that one day there would be passenger-side air bags, we’d have burned you for witchcraft.
Of course I think there is some common ground between us. I remember well the great uncertainty of this day, the anxiety. Many of you are justifiably nervous about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard and hurling yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard grad school, a plum job in your father’s firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex card and then a plum job at your father’s firm. Let me assure you that the knowledge you gained here at Harvard is a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me, your education is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read the Merchant of Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the island of Spain. Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in Russia, or that guy in South America—you know, the guy—will be with you for the rest of your life.
There’s also sadness today. A feeling of loss that you’re leaving Harvard forever. Let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard fundraising committee will be on your ass until the day you die.
This is true. I know for a fact that right now a member of the alumni association is at the Mount Auburn Cemetery shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he has a brass toe ring and they aim to get it. These people just raised $2.5 billion and they only got through the Bs in the alumni directory. Here’s basically how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal when you’re tired and most vulnerable, and a voice asks you for money. Knowing—you’ve read in the paper—that they just raised $2.5 billion, you ask, “What do you need it for?” There is a long pause, and the voice on the other end of the line says, “We don’t need it, we just want it.” (Sinister laugh).
Let me see—by your applause—who here wrote a thesis? That’s nice. A lot of hard work went into that thesis. And no one is ever going to care. I wrote a thesis—this is true, I don’t lie—“Literary Progeria in the Works of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.” Let’s just say that during my discussions with Pauly Shore, it doesn’t come up much. For three years after graduation I wanted to show it to everyone, and so I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car, so that I could show it to a policeman in case I was pulled over.
What else can you expect in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain. Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In those situations, the correct response to, “Where did you go to school?” is “School? I never had much in the way of book learnin’ and such.” And then get in your BMW and get the hell out of there. Go.
You see, kids, you’re in for a lifetime of “And you went to Harvard?” Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction, and it’s “And you went to Harvard?” Ask at the hardware store how the jumper cables work, and hear “And you went to Harvard?” Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants, and it’s “And you went to Harvard?” Get your head stuck in your niece’s doll house ‘cause you want to see what it’s like to be a giant, and it’s “Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard?”
So you really know what’s in store for you after Harvard, I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I’m going to tell it simply, I’m going to tell it honestly, because, first of all, I think my perspective may give many of you hope, and, secondly, it’s such a cool, amazing rush to be in front of 6,000 people and just talk about yourself. It’s just great. It’s so cool. And I can take my time.
You see, kids, after graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles. I got a three-week contract at a small cable show. I got a $380-a-month apartment, a terrible dump, and I bought a 1977 Isuzu Opal, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year because they found out that technically it’s not a car. Quick tip, graduates—no four-cylinder used vehicle should have a racing stripe.
So I worked on that show for about a year, feeling pretty good about myself, when one day they told me that they were letting me go. I was fired. I hadn’t saved any money. So I tried to get another job in television as best I could and couldn’t find one. So with nowhere else to turn-true story—I went to a temp agency and filled out a questionnaire. I made damn sure that they knew I had been to Harvard, that I had written this thesis, and that I expected the very best treatment. And so the next day I was sent to the Santa Monica branch of Wilson’s House of Suede and Leather.
When you have a Harvard degree, and you are working at Wilson’s House of Suede and Leather, you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose graduate school. You see their faces everywhere—in coffee cups, in fish tanks, you think you’re going crazy, and they’re always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man in good conscience would ever wear.
I tried a lot of things during this period. Acting in corporate infomercials. Serving drinks in a nonequity theater. I even took a job entertaining at a seven year-old’s birthday party. In desperate need of work, I put together some sketches and scored a job at the fledgling Fox network as a writer and performer for a brainy show called the “Wilton North Report.” I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a way it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when four weeks later news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into spontaneous applause.
Eventually, though, I got a big break. I had submitted along with my writing partner a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live, and after a year and a half they read it, and they gave us a two-week tryout. The two weeks turned into two seasons, and I felt, hey, this is success, I’m successful now. Successful enough to write a TV pilot for an original sitcom. When the network decided to make it, feeling good, I left Saturday Night Live.
This TV show was going to be groundbreaking. It was going to resurrect the career of TV’s Batman, Adam West. It was going to be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It was going to change all the rules. And here’s what happened. When the pilot aired, it was the second-lowest-rated television show of all time. It is actually tied with a test pattern they show up in Nova Scotia.
So I was 28 and, once again, no job. I had good writing credits in New York, but I was filled with disappointment and I had no idea what I was going to do next. And that is when the Simpsons saved my life. I got a job there and started writing episodes about Springfield getting a monorail or Homer going to college. I was finally putting my Harvard education to good use—writing dialogue for a man who is so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own heart beat. Life was good.
And then an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way, a chance to audition for host of the new “Late Night” show. I took the opportunity very seriously, but at the time—I have to be honest—I had the relaxed confidence of someone who knew he had no real shot, so I couldn’t fear losing a great job that I could never hope to have. And I think that actually that attitude made the difference.
I will never forget being in the Simpsons recording basement that morning when the phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a firelane. But a week later I got another call and got the job. So this, finally, was undeniably it. The truly life-altering break that I had always dreamed of. And so I went to work. I gathered all my funny friends and poured all my years of comedy experience into building the show over the summer. I gathered the talent, figured out the sensibility, found Max, found Andy, found my people. We debuted on September 13, 1993, and I was really happy, really happy, with our effort. I felt like I had seized the moment, that I had put my very best foot forward.
And this was what the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom Shales, wrote in the Washington Post. “O’Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He has dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He is one of the whitest white men ever. O’Brien is a switch on the guest who won’t leave: he’s the host who should never have come. Let the Late Show with Conan O’Brien become the late Late Show, and may the host return to whence he came.” There’s more, but it gets kind of mean.
Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive, and, to be honest with you, it hurt like you would not believe. But I’m telling you all this for a reason. I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve had a lot of failure. I’ve looked good. I’ve looked bad. I’ve been praised. And I’ve been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. I’ve dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed, your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Success is a lot like a bright white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you’re desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it.
I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of the Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet every failure was freeing, and today I’m as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good. So that’s what I wish for all of you—the bad as well as the good. Fall down. Make a mess. Break something occasionally. Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be. And remember that the story is never over.
If you’ll indulge me for just a second, I’d like to read a little something from just this year. “Somehow, Conan O’Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the late-night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard, and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possibly the greatest host ever.”
Ladies and gentlemen, class of 2000, I wrote that this morning. As proof that when all else fails, you always have delusion. I will go now to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought. If you can laugh at yourself, loud and hard, every time you fall, people will think you’re drunk. Thank you.
law school rant #1: why the hell am i in law school?
so lately, i've been thinking a lot. (and you can tell because i rarely blog about my feelings and thoughts in a public website but there you go). what am i doing in law school?
it's a recurring question in my head? why am i in law school? the first reason i usually give is that i've wanted to be one since i was seven years old. pretty young, right? pretty ambitious... but right now, if i could do one thing, i would go back in time and smack my little seven year old face and tell her to set her dreams just a little bit lower and a little more reachable. plus a little more practical and imaginative. after all, seven year olds should be dreaming about wanting to be a princess or a fairy or the President of the world (at least before the image was tainted by 4'10" creepiness that is GMA), not dreaming about the four years after finally earning a legitimate college degree that she could finally use to earn a living and stop being dependent on her parents. my seven year old self shouldn't be dreaming that in 14 years, she'd be entering into 4 years of HELL that her parents have paid a huge amount for, where she can grow an ulcer because she's got 362 cases for one subject and 70 articles to memorize in one class.
if you haven't noticed, i'm currently scheduled in that law school funk that every law student supposedly goes through. because when i analyze what law school is, this is what i come up:
it's four years of hell, compounded by cases, provisions, Constitutions, professors, recits, exams, failures, ego-bruisings, major debt, caffeine addictions, ulcer growing, sleepless nights, endless worrying, helplessness, beating yourself up, wondering why you studied so hard and got this grade. then followed by graduation, then another endless five or six months of studying for the bar every waking moment, a month of feeling like your life and your dreams are on the line, then several months worrying you didn't achieve your dream, until you get the results.
did i get it right?
sometimes i don't understand the unreasonableness of people, why we would choose to study our brains out to the point that spelling becomes a momentous task, and choosing to pay an incredible amount of money to an institution to humiliate, badger and work us so much, instead of working and getting paid for work(!) that never has to follow us when we go home at night.
that tells me law students and lawyers are just a different brand of people.
i expected hard. maybe stupendously difficult. i didn't expect it to be so difficult, i'd start to question a 14 year old dream.
it's not that i want to quit. but so much studying has made me begin to forget what it is that made me want to be a lawyer. my reasons can't be that i've wanted to be one since i was seven. i could have had the same conviction for wanting to be a plumber. but it had to be law.
i'm going to be honest, i thought law would be absolutely perfect for me. and i think grade school, high school, college lulled me into thinking that if i enjoyed it, i would be good at it! i like law, i like speaking, i like people = being a good lawyer!
easy-peasy, right?
not.
as i write this, i begin to realize what law school is instilling in me. there's the solid, painful, ego-bruising truth that just because i thought i would be good at it, does not mean i am. it doesn't matter how talented you are, being good means you have to work at it.
boy, have i been working at it.
i was lucky enough to go to good schools, to always achieve my goals. i was lucky enough to have things at my disposal to get me where i wanted to be today. i was lucky enough to get into law school!
but luck ditched me the first day of intro to law. from here on out, it's not luck that's going to get me through the next five years. it's not luck that's going to breeze past dozens of cases a night, put 40 articles in my head verbatim, answer every question a professor throws at me. it's just plain ugly blood sweat tears hard work.
and after four months, i'll be the first to admit, that whatever hard work i thought i was capable of, it is the tip of iceberg of law school. maybe what i'm finding so difficult and so resistant to is the fact that the previous 20 years of my life, i've breezed on luck and minor skill, and i've done well enough to be above average (my ego has to show some life, after the bruising it's gotten) and now, with the amount of work i've put in, it's just not good enough and i might just be average.
who the fuck wants to be average?
but another thing i have to admit is the fact that i might just be only mediocre or average bothers me, not because i hate those words ("mediocre", crap), but because i'm worried of failing the people who i'm trying to help. the huge amount of work i have enrolled into to become a lawyer, feels like i'm just chipping at the Mt. Everest of the next few years. and even just feeling the amount of work i have to get through to the end, worries me that if i miss just one thing, it's a crucial thing to winning a case for someone who really needs it.
i had ideas & notions of what being a lawyer was aaaalllll about but i never thought about how much responsibility it would be. i don't care about the fuck-up lawyers & judges who give the profession a bad name. i don't even care about reputations or careers or money. a part of me doesn't even care about the client i could be failing. i care about how guilty i would feel knowing i went into something half-assed.
well, that answers why i won't quit last school. but i don't think i've answered why i want to be a lawyer. i have to think about it.
it's a recurring question in my head? why am i in law school? the first reason i usually give is that i've wanted to be one since i was seven years old. pretty young, right? pretty ambitious... but right now, if i could do one thing, i would go back in time and smack my little seven year old face and tell her to set her dreams just a little bit lower and a little more reachable. plus a little more practical and imaginative. after all, seven year olds should be dreaming about wanting to be a princess or a fairy or the President of the world (at least before the image was tainted by 4'10" creepiness that is GMA), not dreaming about the four years after finally earning a legitimate college degree that she could finally use to earn a living and stop being dependent on her parents. my seven year old self shouldn't be dreaming that in 14 years, she'd be entering into 4 years of HELL that her parents have paid a huge amount for, where she can grow an ulcer because she's got 362 cases for one subject and 70 articles to memorize in one class.
if you haven't noticed, i'm currently scheduled in that law school funk that every law student supposedly goes through. because when i analyze what law school is, this is what i come up:
it's four years of hell, compounded by cases, provisions, Constitutions, professors, recits, exams, failures, ego-bruisings, major debt, caffeine addictions, ulcer growing, sleepless nights, endless worrying, helplessness, beating yourself up, wondering why you studied so hard and got this grade. then followed by graduation, then another endless five or six months of studying for the bar every waking moment, a month of feeling like your life and your dreams are on the line, then several months worrying you didn't achieve your dream, until you get the results.
did i get it right?
sometimes i don't understand the unreasonableness of people, why we would choose to study our brains out to the point that spelling becomes a momentous task, and choosing to pay an incredible amount of money to an institution to humiliate, badger and work us so much, instead of working and getting paid for work(!) that never has to follow us when we go home at night.
that tells me law students and lawyers are just a different brand of people.
i expected hard. maybe stupendously difficult. i didn't expect it to be so difficult, i'd start to question a 14 year old dream.
it's not that i want to quit. but so much studying has made me begin to forget what it is that made me want to be a lawyer. my reasons can't be that i've wanted to be one since i was seven. i could have had the same conviction for wanting to be a plumber. but it had to be law.
i'm going to be honest, i thought law would be absolutely perfect for me. and i think grade school, high school, college lulled me into thinking that if i enjoyed it, i would be good at it! i like law, i like speaking, i like people = being a good lawyer!
easy-peasy, right?
not.
as i write this, i begin to realize what law school is instilling in me. there's the solid, painful, ego-bruising truth that just because i thought i would be good at it, does not mean i am. it doesn't matter how talented you are, being good means you have to work at it.
boy, have i been working at it.
i was lucky enough to go to good schools, to always achieve my goals. i was lucky enough to have things at my disposal to get me where i wanted to be today. i was lucky enough to get into law school!
but luck ditched me the first day of intro to law. from here on out, it's not luck that's going to get me through the next five years. it's not luck that's going to breeze past dozens of cases a night, put 40 articles in my head verbatim, answer every question a professor throws at me. it's just plain ugly blood sweat tears hard work.
and after four months, i'll be the first to admit, that whatever hard work i thought i was capable of, it is the tip of iceberg of law school. maybe what i'm finding so difficult and so resistant to is the fact that the previous 20 years of my life, i've breezed on luck and minor skill, and i've done well enough to be above average (my ego has to show some life, after the bruising it's gotten) and now, with the amount of work i've put in, it's just not good enough and i might just be average.
who the fuck wants to be average?
but another thing i have to admit is the fact that i might just be only mediocre or average bothers me, not because i hate those words ("mediocre", crap), but because i'm worried of failing the people who i'm trying to help. the huge amount of work i have enrolled into to become a lawyer, feels like i'm just chipping at the Mt. Everest of the next few years. and even just feeling the amount of work i have to get through to the end, worries me that if i miss just one thing, it's a crucial thing to winning a case for someone who really needs it.
i had ideas & notions of what being a lawyer was aaaalllll about but i never thought about how much responsibility it would be. i don't care about the fuck-up lawyers & judges who give the profession a bad name. i don't even care about reputations or careers or money. a part of me doesn't even care about the client i could be failing. i care about how guilty i would feel knowing i went into something half-assed.
well, that answers why i won't quit last school. but i don't think i've answered why i want to be a lawyer. i have to think about it.
hoshit
Pilot: We haven't been cleared for landing yet, so we're just going to have to fly around for about 30 minutes. We have about 45 minutes worth of fuel left, so we should be okay.
--Flight into LaGuardia
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Life and How to Survive It
Adrian Tan is a litigation lawyer at one of Singapore's leading law firms. Outside the courtroom, he is known for a variety of funny things, including The Teenage Textbook, which he wrote in the late 1980s. The book became a cult classic among students of that generation and was adapted into a film 10 years later.
Adrian was the guest-of-honour at an NTU convocation ceremony last week, and this is Adrian's speech to the graduating class of 2008:
I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation.
I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband. My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.
On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.
Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.
And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.
Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.
The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.
You've probably been told the big lie that 'Learning is a lifelong process' and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.
The good news is that they're wrong. The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.
I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life. You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.
Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.
So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.
Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.
I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.
Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste. If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.
What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.
Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.
What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over. Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
The most important is this: do not work. Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable. Work kills. The Japanese have a term 'Karoshi', which means death from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.
There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are 'making a living'. No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan 'Arbeit macht frei' was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.
So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.
Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don't, you are working.
Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.
In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.
I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.
It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
The other side of the coin is this: fall in love. I didn't say 'be loved'. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.
Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.
Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth, the worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.
Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.
You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.
Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.
Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.
You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.
Adrian was the guest-of-honour at an NTU convocation ceremony last week, and this is Adrian's speech to the graduating class of 2008:
I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation.
I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband. My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.
On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.
Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.
And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.
Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.
The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.
You've probably been told the big lie that 'Learning is a lifelong process' and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.
The good news is that they're wrong. The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.
I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life. You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.
Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.
So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.
Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.
I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.
Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste. If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.
What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.
Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.
What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over. Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
The most important is this: do not work. Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable. Work kills. The Japanese have a term 'Karoshi', which means death from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.
There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are 'making a living'. No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan 'Arbeit macht frei' was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.
So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.
Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don't, you are working.
Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.
In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.
I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.
It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
The other side of the coin is this: fall in love. I didn't say 'be loved'. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.
Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.
Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth, the worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.
Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.
You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.
Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.
Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.
You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.
you know you're a law student when...
1. You consider dropping out of law school approximately every hour, but after that first semester you realized you were already in too much debt to be anything other than a lawyer.
2. Substance abuse becomes you. -beer, yosi, coffee name it!
3. The drama in your life now rivals that of high school.
4. You consider tie-dying all of your t-shirts because they are already half covered in fluorescent ink from your highlighters.
5. You no longer have an ego left to bruise...it' s already been beaten to a bloody pulp.
6. You make adverse possession jokes. (not quite, but i laughed at "you can't legislate love")
7. You wonder if that one professor who always seems angry and irritable and treats students' minds as his personal playground is actually a sociopath or just didn't get enough hugs as a child.
8. You know and understand the complicated epistemological and metaphysical differences between a conspirator and an accomplice. (almost! but you know, i'm not that good at effin' crim)
9. You know and understand the complicated epistemological and metaphysical differences between coffee and red bull.
10. You can't remember if you decided to come to law school because you wanted to help people and make a difference in the world or because you hate yourself. -a little of both, but really, i just want to be rich.
11. You think whoever came up with the Socratic method should have his face lit on fire and then beaten out with a rake. (and have his balls set upon by fire ants)
12. You can't think of any legitimate reason why a law student would need access to certain public records, but you can think of a whole lot of illegitimate ones.
13. You hear about the death of an elderly friend or relative and wonder if they died intestate.
14. You have considered changing career paths to hot dog vendor, stilt walker, or career alcoholic. (the truest thing ever. but i really just want to be a waitress)
15. You know all sorts of sneaky and creative ways to steal from clients thanks to your Professionalism and Ethics class.
16. You're pretty sure the reasonable prudent man is a friendless tool who still lives with his mother.
plus a few extras i've heard about from barristers:
17. you forget how to spell words like unforeseeable and just end up writing "cannot be foreseen."
18. you forget how to spell period. it takes you 2 minutes to unblock from one word.
19. you wonder why you decided to pay someone megabucks to harass you with cases and recits and exams, when you can just be paid to do work that never follows you home.
20. when you take a test and the procter tells you time is up, you want to bite his hand when he reaches for you paper. what does he know about giving you minus points for breaking deadline, it's your dream to be a lawyer and he better not stand in your way.
Gerard Butler on the success of the movie 300:
“You come out of that movie so pumped up, so ready to die for your friends or your country or anything. Like, ‘I will fight for my parking space! I will kill. This is my parking space!’”
Ed Hochuli is very frowny after the disaster in Denver
According to NFL supervisor of officials Mike Pereira, Ed Hochuli is "devastated" at what went down in Denver on Sunday. If you missed it, Hochuli made an inexplicable mental gaffe--I won't call it a "blown call" or "missed call" because I think it goes a little beyond that--that almost directly cost the Chargers a loss against the Broncos.
From Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union Tribune:
No one, it appears, is taking the mistake and its ramifications harder than Hochuli."He's devastated," said Mike Pereira, the NFL's supervisor of officials. "... I was talking to Ed within 10 minutes after the game was over, and he was sick. He's still sick (yesterday)."Everybody works so hard and wants to be perfect in a game you're not likely to ever be perfect. I've talked to him three times. He's really struggling with the fact he made such a bad call."
Hochuli's also manning up and taking his e-mail lumps. His e-mail address isn't hard to find with a simple Yahoo! search, and he's been bombarded with hate mail. And still, he's replying to everyone. Someone relayed the following reply from Hochuli to a message board at the San Diego Union Tribute.
I'm getting hundreds of emails – hate mail – but I'm responding to it all. People deserve a response.You can rest assured that nothing anyone can say can make me feel worse than I already feel about my mistake on the fumble play. You have no idea ...Affecting the outcome of a game is a devastating feeling. Officials strive for perfection – I failed miserably. Although it does no good to say it, I am very, very sorry.
Ed Hochuli
----------------------------------
i know next to nothing about football, but i respect the fact that he's responding to hate mail! geez, he coulda taken the safe way out and just insisted it was a good call. he's keeping the integrity of the sport, quit giving him a hard time.
From Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union Tribune:
No one, it appears, is taking the mistake and its ramifications harder than Hochuli."He's devastated," said Mike Pereira, the NFL's supervisor of officials. "... I was talking to Ed within 10 minutes after the game was over, and he was sick. He's still sick (yesterday)."Everybody works so hard and wants to be perfect in a game you're not likely to ever be perfect. I've talked to him three times. He's really struggling with the fact he made such a bad call."
Hochuli's also manning up and taking his e-mail lumps. His e-mail address isn't hard to find with a simple Yahoo! search, and he's been bombarded with hate mail. And still, he's replying to everyone. Someone relayed the following reply from Hochuli to a message board at the San Diego Union Tribute.
I'm getting hundreds of emails – hate mail – but I'm responding to it all. People deserve a response.You can rest assured that nothing anyone can say can make me feel worse than I already feel about my mistake on the fumble play. You have no idea ...Affecting the outcome of a game is a devastating feeling. Officials strive for perfection – I failed miserably. Although it does no good to say it, I am very, very sorry.
Ed Hochuli
----------------------------------
i know next to nothing about football, but i respect the fact that he's responding to hate mail! geez, he coulda taken the safe way out and just insisted it was a good call. he's keeping the integrity of the sport, quit giving him a hard time.
okay, i'm a softie. stuff like this makes me cry.
crap, you'd think this was cute. but it's actually a little dangerous. it's a good thing the kid's staying put. 
separately, plastic bottles weigh nothing. together, i bet they weigh a ton.
ahhhh, jesus, he's carrying his kid and walking on a rope! shit shit shit.
eep! i wouldn't do this to my grandmother!
censorship cleverly averted
i think this got censored... but you know, it's a lot classier and more clever than other posters i've seen! (i didn't even notice the thing to be censored. looook carefulllllly)
i even like the replacement. (see below)
i like seth rogen. i want to watch this movie. not just because it looks interesting... but also because it mentions titillating with Seth Rogen. (that was not an original thought. thank you, gawker.com)
How Magazines Led Investors Toward Ruin
In December, Fortune magazine admitted it had been remiss naming insurance giant AIG one of its "10 Stocks To Buy Now" before a yearlong 18 percent decline. "We... didn't expect [the] mortgage unit to be such an albatross," editors wrote. To correct the error, the magazine had a fresh list of "The Best Stocks For 2008" — including Merrill Lynch. "Smart investors should buy this stock before everyone else comes to their senses," Fortune wrote, calling a recent correction in Merrill stock "an overreaction." Investors who followed this advice are now down 93 percent. All the big financial magazines butter their bread with dubious prescriptions for how hobbyist investors can beat market professionals, so Fortune is hardly alone in being humiliated by the ongoing market meltdown. We'll spread the embarrassment around after the jump.
Forbes: "Merrill is in damn good shape."
In April, Forbes published a cover story about Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, headlined "No Thain, No Gain." Like Fortune, Forbes spends a lot of time talking to the executives it covers, and angling for access. It has been known to churn out plenty of hagiography, if not as steadily as its competitor, and the Thain piece edged into that territory: Thain was compared to Superman's alter ego Clark Kent, called the "Mr. Fixit" at his last job and described as "athletic" and "coolheaded." Even his facial expressions were reassuring, with a grin that "says, No need to brace for disaster."
Some of those compliments held up reasonably well, given that Thain managed to sell Merrill just in the nick of time, and at a point when two similarly-troubled competitors could not find buyers.
But then Forbes' Daniel Fisher had to go and write, "Aside from its obvious troubles—afflicting all the largest financial institutions (see chart)—Merrill is in damn good shape... Part of Thain’s job, like that of a good physician, is to do no harm. Meaning: Keep the cash machine going..." Whoops. (Thanks to the tipster who emailed this one in.)
BusinessWeek: "Don't Be Leery Of Lehman"
For the "Inside Wall Street" investing column in its April 7 issue, BusinessWeek touted the benefits of owning Lehman Brothers stock. "Don't Be Leery Of Lehman," the headline on the second item read. The magazine said that "most shell-shocked investors are still leery" of the stock, but then quoted two Lehman bulls:
"The fears surrounding the firm's funding and liquidity position have been overstated," says William Tanona of Goldman Sachs (GS) (which has done business with Lehman). His 12-month target: 58.
... "Lehman's management, led by Richard Fuld, is the best in the business," says [Punk Ziegel's Richard] Bove.
Fortune: Merrill Lynch in "best stocks for 2008" and AIG in 2007 "10 stocks to buy now."
The magazine's thoughts in December 2006 on AIG, before an 18 percent stock decline the following year:
It's clear that AIG was no Enron. Under CEO Martin Sullivan, a 30-year company veteran, AIG... is reporting impressive profit growth once again. Led by a strong showing in its property and casualty business, the company registered a 38 percent jump in net income in the first three quarters of 2006 before investment gains or losses, to $11.6 billion. As Don Yacktman, who recently purchased more than 100,000 shares for his Yacktman Funds, puts it, "A little bit of plastic surgery and - voilà ! - the ugly duckling becomes a swan."
Expect more strong results in 2007. Hurricane Katrina, which damaged billions of dollars' worth of homes, commercial structures and energy facilities, should help AIG's P&C business...
The similarly disastrous reasoning behind selecting Merrill Lynch this past December:
Question: What do you call it when an $8 billion asset writedown translates into a $30 billion loss in market cap? Answer: an overreaction. Yes, Merrill's shares deserved a punishment for the firm's mortgage-related bungling. But the public flogging has far exceeded the transgression, which is why smart investors should buy this stock before everyone else comes to their senses.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
someone watched too much godfather
Mother: So remember, when we get off the train, you have to hold my hand.
Five-year-old girl: Capeesh.
Mother: Do you understand? You have to hold my hand.
Five-year-old girl: Capeesh, mom! Capeesh!
--A Train
Five-year-old girl: Capeesh.
Mother: Do you understand? You have to hold my hand.
Five-year-old girl: Capeesh, mom! Capeesh!
--A Train
you pick your true love, you don't wait for destiny or fate
When you meet the right person to love, at the right place, at the right time, that's a chance.
When you meet someone you're attracted to, that's also a chance.
Being caught that there are many people out there who are more attractive, smarter, and richer than your mate and yet you decide to love your mate just the same, that's a choice.
Attraction comes to us by chance, but true love that lasts is truly a choice.
Listen, fate brings you together, but it's still up to you to make it happen. We may meet someone by chance but loving and staying with that someone is still a choice.
------ from bon's blog, http://www.fleshaddicted.blogspot.com/
When you meet someone you're attracted to, that's also a chance.
Being caught that there are many people out there who are more attractive, smarter, and richer than your mate and yet you decide to love your mate just the same, that's a choice.
Attraction comes to us by chance, but true love that lasts is truly a choice.
Listen, fate brings you together, but it's still up to you to make it happen. We may meet someone by chance but loving and staying with that someone is still a choice.
------ from bon's blog, http://www.fleshaddicted.blogspot.com/
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