Skype is allowing Skype-to-phone calls in the U.S. and Canada for free until the end of the year. Interesting.

I am fairly certain that the word “simultaneously” is far and away the most difficult word in the english language for me to type.

I just came across a song called “The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot” (By Brand New) which I think is one of the most vivid song titles I have ever heard. How many times I have I packed my own jumper at the buzzer?

Unfortunately, the lyrics are not as inspiring as the title of the song. Oh well.

I came home several weeks ago inconsolable. The impending exam period looked impossible to manage and I was distracted by a variety of little life issues that in combination had me feeling paralyzed.

As I approached the kitchen counter I saw my old con law book on the counter, open to the very first page so that the inside cover was showing. Inscribed on the inside of the cover was the following:

Mike - Keep hope alive.

Jesse Jackson

My roomate is borrowing my con law book for the semester. He was on a flight from New Orleans to New York and got bumped to first class. Sitting across the aisle was Rev. Jackson. He took the opportunity to get the only thing he had on him signed. It just happened to be my con law book. He rightfully realized that a message to him in my con law book wasn’t going to fly so so he asked Jesse to sign the book for me.

What blows my mind is that the good rev could have said anything. He could have said “good luck,” or “fight the good fight.” But instead he chose “keep hope alive.”

How did he know that simple message was exactly what I needed?

Everything will be fine, Jesse said so.

I just opened up a book I am relying heavily on for a paper I am writing. Unsure where the passage I was looking for was located, I let the book fall open randomly and there, tucked in the crease, was a fortune (presumably from a chinese meal I had recently - at least I hope so). It read:

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he gives up

Whew… I was about ready to give up on these exams (and as a result law school) until I read that.

Seriously.

[She]
I was headed to church

[He]
I was off to drink you away

From Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow

I am researching internet usage statistics for a paper I am writing and came across a useful (or so I thought) chart about the percentage of people who reported doing various activities online yesteday. The results were spot on at first. Email came in first with 53% of internet uers claiming to have emailed during the previous day. Search was second with 38%. But things broke down toward the end of the chart. How did I know?

1% of online users claimed to have visited an adult site in the last 24 hours

I am no statistician, but that number cannot be correct. Perhaps consumers of adult content do not answer surveys. Perhaps it was a Sunday and everyone was in church instead. More liklely, despite the fact that the survey was anonymous, people simply refused to admit that they visited an adult site.

Whatever the reason, that stat just ain’t right.

A psychology professor at Tufts recently copmpleted a study that showed that diverse groups perform better than homogenous groups when it comes to decision making. The key finding is much more interesting…this is due largely to dramatic differences in the way whites behave in diverse groups–changes that occur even before group members begin to interact.

Whites on diverse juries cited more case facts, made fewer mistakes in recalling facts and evidence, and pointed out missing evidence more frequently than did those on all-white juries…

To the guy that sat next to me in the evidence exam last semester, you owe me a beer for the extra points you got as a result of my presence.

Was looking for this and wanted to save it here for future use. Something about finals always brings me back to this poem.

#341 in the collected works of Emily Dickinson

After great pain a formal feeling comes–
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions–was it He that bore?
And yesterday–or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow–
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.