Some Other Tim

Picking Out Whites Based On Label And Price

Trader Joe’s is the only place to buy wine. (For me. The price and the selection are right.) Unfortunately, it’s all the way on the other side of town and I rarely venture beyond the corner store these days.

But since I already had reason to be out today, engineered to be about as far from home as possible while still in Gainesville, I made a long awaited trip.

I’ve been in the mood for whites lately. And since I know basically nothing about wine, it’s kinda fun to prowl the display and pick out anything that’s below a certain price that has an appealing label. Here’s what I came away with today:

It’s hard because I’m naturally more attracted to the aesthetics of reds, and had to keep pulling myself back from putting those in my basket (since I don’t actually want to drink them at the moment).

The one with the lion I’ve had before and it’s good. The pancake one has a silly label and it’s a blend, but like I’m really supposed to resist buying something from a company that calls itself Pancake Cellars. The Pinot was recommended as “crew member’s choice” or some such. And the Santa Barbara chardonnay had the least offensive label of the rest that fit my price parameters.

I’m not quite ready to dive into all the different Trader Joe’s labels (there are a number of them); I’ve had the Two Buck Chuck and it does the job surprisingly well, but I’m not sure how to judge their more “upscale” offerings. So I stuck to the other offerings.

(I also picked up some cookie butter while I was there, which is reason enough to make the trip.)

I look forward to finding out if what I picked up is any good!

Woo - Kindle Time!

The kindle I got myself for my birthday came in the mail today!

I haven’t had time to really read anything on it yet, but I’m excited to start reading like a (semi) normal person again!

Because lately I haven’t been reading anything that comes in the form of a tangible book. And since my phone is really too small to be anything but annoying to read from, I’ve been reading a lot on my laptop. And when I read on my laptop I have difficulty stopping. For whatever reason. More so than with regular books. I guess because reading on my laptop isn’t that accessible? So it’s less easy to foresee when I’ll be able to get back to it; so completion feels more necessary? (If that makes any sense.)

But anyway, this drive/methodology hinders my reading because I can really only start something if I know I’m going to be able to finish it in that sitting. Which means mostly reading only at night when I’m done with everything else I need to do that day (and mostly staying up really late doing it, because I am overly ambitious). It also means reading a lot of short things; proper novels are a bit beyond the single-sitting rule no matter how ambitious I’m feeling.

So, I’m HOPING that the kindle will enable me to be less psychotic about my reading. And also hopefully diversify my reading material.

I’m excited about it, regardless, though, because it’s an adorable little device; it looks like a pamphlet sitting on top of a stack of other books and papers on my desk and feels just lovely in my hand. 

(I can also put my bar prep outlines on it. Ew, gross.)

Happy Birthday - You’re Dumber Than You Were Before!

Even though it’s my birthday, I had a lot I wanted to get done today (in terms of bar prep).

My roommate was going to be out all day doing Father’s Day type duties. There were no evening plans (*cough* hockey) to break my flow. Just a long uninterrupted stretch of quiet time to plow through some review and practice questions.

(Btw, it is BULLSHIT that review is scheduled for the weekends because it’s more “relaxing”. Review is the actual studying part and it’s the worst, worst, worst. Everyone should know this.)

Turns out, though, I was NOT in the proper mindset for this today. Ended up struggling with my contracts outline for most of the day. Then did some practice contracts questions and did WORSE THAN I’VE DONE ON ANYTHING DURING BAR PREP SO FAR. So. Rewarding.

I’m blaming it on an off day (I’ve done better than this on contracts questions before, presumably I can do better than this again). But, damn, that sucks. And I get to do it all over again tomorrow!

Working Hard Or…Playing With Desk Toys?

Okay, so, the light was kind of against me when trying to take this picture…

But I thought it deserved documentation. 

It’s the collection of toys and other junk I have on my desk to play with while I watch lectures. I never realized my desk had so much character until I started looking around.

No reason my hands shouldn’t be busy while my mind is otherwise occupied, I guess.

Birthday Weekend

I’ve never been one to make a big deal about my birthday. I’m not much of party person. Plus, being an only child, a summer baby, and not the social-est of butterflies, there was never much point in making a thing out of it even if I’d wanted to. Sure, I had some parties when I was kid, the whole she-bang, cake and presents and kids, but that all ended a long time ago.

As an adult, my birthday is an excuse to treat myself (and I LOVE treating myself); anything I want to do or buy during the month of June becomes a “birthday present to myself” and therefore totally justifiable.

I don’t need or want anyone else to make a big thing of it; apparently I’m perfectly capable of doing that on my own.

What am I doing “for my birthday” this year? Going to Universal to see Adam Lambert, going to see The Mountain Goats, buying myself a Kindle, maybe buying myself something ~else, and probably eating the entire cake my roommate bought me.

Did I mention that my roommate bought me a cake? Blindfolded me and made me blow out the candles and everything. She even sang, which since I was very appreciative of the cake, I refrained from vining. She’s pretty great.

(Also, did you know, Publix has a maximum number of roses they will put on a cake? If you intend to kill yourself with frosting, you’re going to have to buy multiple cakes to do it!)

#TheStruggle

Today was Ticket-Stress Tuesday! erm…Thursday! (Because sometimes things that shouldn’t be hard are hard for me.)

Mission: Buy tickets for the Mountain Goats show at the High Dive, avoid on-line processing fees.

I thought it was going to be (relatively) easy. Go to the record store, buy the tickets. I’ve been to the record store before, the beardy guy who runs it seems nice, even though I’ve never actually bought anything from there because I am, how you say, a poor person? But, anyway, that doesn’t seem too hard. So I go on in this afternoon, ask for the tickets and…they’re sold out. Probably only still have them at the venue, friendly beardy guy tells me.

Fuck. You mean the venue that I’ve never been to? And that won’t be open until after 9 PM so I have all day to think about how terrible I’m going to be at this?

Things that I am bad at: going to unfamiliar places, talking to unfamiliar people, asking questions I don’t already know the answer to, driving downtown, and parking downtown. Most of these I have already done once by going to the record store; now I have to do them AGAIN.

I know this sounds like minor stuff, but I am a controlling control-freak who doesn’t like to go into any situation (particularly social ones) with anything less than complete knowledge. (I google a lot when I’m anxious.)

Thankfully, my roommate came home just as I was preparing to face my doom and she agreed to go with me (took pity on my poor, unnecessarily anxious self, is what she did). All I had to do was agree to hang for a bit, and be dd if necessary (sold!).

So, we got there and it was no big deal. Probably one of the least intimidating places I’ve ever been. How to describe it? Well, DIVE is right in the name. But it’s charming in a hipstery kind of way.

Also decreasing the intimidation factor: it was not crowded at all and it was very possible that we were the oldest people in there. Different colored wrist bands for over and under-21s made it frighteningly apparent how many babies were in the crowd.

So we stayed to have a couple of beers and “enjoy” a set by a local band (also made up of babies) and generally be the cougar-iest people in the bar. It was really nice, actually.

All that internal struggle for nothing. (That’s how it always is; I should cut myself a break.) But I’m so glad my roommate went with me; the way it turned out was much more fun than my nervous-wreck of a self trying to talk to the door guy and then fast-walking away either in victory or defeat. Plus, this way, we got to scope out the room (which alleviates some of the anxiety I’m bound to feel on the night of the show), and I’m excited to go back. It’s a teeny-tiny place and it’s going to be AWESOME.

Here It Comes

Does hockey care that I have shit to do?

No, it does not.

Not even a little bit.

If it did, games wouldn’t go into triple-overtime.

Certainly not on Game 1 in a series. (Very nearly one of the longest games ever in the Stanley Cup Finals. For real)

But that’s okay; hockey is forgiven. Because having something to look forward to definitely helps keep me motivated and positive. And right now I have a lot to look forward to; June has plenty left to offer me: hockey, concerts (multiple!), birthdays, friendship.

(As my roommate kindly reminded me last night, there’s no point getting all depressive now when I’ll be seeing Adam in two and half weeks. If that’s not something to live for, I don’t know what is.)

So, yay! Now back to work (very, very belatedly).

Progress Report

Bar prep is relentless and stupid and relentlessly stupid.

There are no breaks. If you’re not feelin’ it one day, you know you’re only making it worse for yourself on EVERY SUBSEQUENT DAY because you’ll be doing catch-up.

(I’m having a lot of difficulty getting motivated to do errands, since studying takes priority. Too bad those tend to build up as well. And today I wasn’t motivated to do either.)

And it relies entirely on your own self-motivation. You don’t HAVE to study for the bar (you definitely, definitely should but no one is forcing you to. It’s pass-fail; passing it is literally the only thing that matters and if you’re confident in your abilities, well…more power to you),

If you have the impression that lawyer’s are ruthless and ambitious, this is why.

From the minute we enter law school we’re left to our own devices. There are no mentors or advisors (unless you seek them out), no quizzes to make sure you’re understanding the material and keeping pace with your peers, no progress reports of any kind. It’s all on you. All the time. And it’s exhausting. It only makes sense that bar prep (your last act as a not-quite lawyer) would be all of that to-the-max.

Jonah Hex

So, after my brief brush with an arguably higher form of culture yesterday, I decided to squander it all by watching Jonah Hex. I’ve been carrying it around with me since April, scorned and unloved; it was time.)

And I’ll say this for Jonah Hex: It’s short. It’s even pretty entertaining, with the caveat that nothing about it is actually good.

I’d say, it’s main source of value comes in terms of surprise. And things are mostly surprising just because they’re so improbable.

The cast alone offers a high improbability value: Was that Will Arnett? (The video quality was so poor it actually took me a bit to figure that out. I’ve yet determine whether it was the DVD or my machine that caused the fucked up playback.) Seth Gabel (this one matters only to me). Michael Fassbender? I thought he was supposed to be a serious actor! (Though I suppose Josh Brolin is too, sometimes). Michael Shannon (!). John Malkovich. And, oh yeah, remember when Megan Fox was a thing? Aren’t we all glad that’s over? (Her waist was cinched so tight in this movie it was more grotesque than sexy.)

Then everything else is just an odd muddle of elements cribbed from other movies. There’s weird steam punk stuff, magic of all types (there’s a snake-man at one point?), boats and trains and SO MANY HATS. Worth only the street value of its component parts and instantly forgettable. 

Tonys 2013

The upside to there being no hockey tonight (sorry, Pens), is that I got to watch The Tonys unmolested! #culture

So, here’s why I love The Tonys: If I watch them, I get to ignore the theater for the entire rest of the year, and still come out seeming somewhat knowledgeable.

Because seriously, other than what I see on the Thanksgiving Day Parade or the little bits of news I pick up from twitter, I’m utterly ignorant on the subject. I missed The Tonys last year, and therefore had to be reminded that Once has been turned into a musical, and informed of the fact that the guy who plays Rory Williams (or Mr. Amy Pond, if you prefer) on Doctor Who is in it! I could have made a lot of hay with this information if I’d only been willing to set a side a couple of hours to learn it a year ago.

Most people know little enough about the theater, that I can more than get by on what I learn from The Tonys. Plus, I love a big production and have difficulty passing up chances to see NPH in action (I saw The Smurfs, ferchrissake).

The (potential) downside of watching, though, is that just about every year I find out about some show that I wish I could see. And that’s only going to happen if I ever actually make it to NYC (with cash to blow on theater tickets), or a touring production ever makes it to South Florida…maybe in about three years time. This year’s gotta-see-it: Kinky Boots. Music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper, it features drag queens, thigh-high boots, and treadmill choreography (several of my favorite things). It reminds me of my birthday present last year when my mom and I went to see La Cage aux Folles. That was fun; I wish I could do it more often.

Oh well, there goes my brief brush with culture. Back to whatever it is that I normally do.