Suck it (ha) True Blood

I'm going to start this rant with a disclaimer: I do not think the Twilight novels are well-written.  I think it's an interesting story, with several major flaws, including (but not limited to) an unlikeable main female character, a creepy stalker male love interest, and unrealistic and hopelessly ineffective antagonists.*

That being said, I would way rather re-watch or re-read an installment in the Twilight universe than sit through another interminably boring episode of True Blood.

Oh wait!  you say.  True Blood has been nominated for Emmys!  It has Oscar-winning actors!  It's on HBO!

But here's the thing, I say patiently in reply.  It sucks goat balls. 

I tried to give it a chance, I really did.  I watched nearly the entire first season.  I stopped when I remembered there was some kind of vampire-serial-killer plot, and I didn't give a crap about how it resolved itself.

I tried again with the second season.  Once again, the main bad guy -- Vibrating MaryAnn, both more and less dirty than it sounds -- was less interesting than Secured Transactions.  I would literally rather find out who perfected their financial interest first than find out the dealio with the weird bestiality orgy lady.

 All the characters are boring, except for Lafayette.  Sookie's super perfect and has an awful accent.  She struts around like there's so much INJUSTICE in the world, AND ONLY SHE CAN FIX IT.  It's like if Elizabeth Wakefield of the Sweet Valley High twins were Southern, poor and a mind-reading waitress.  When she inevitably has to choose between Todd and Jeffrey Bill and Eric or Bill and As-Yet-To-Be-Determined-Werewolf-Character, it is going to bore us all to tears.  Except some of us will be pretending that it's soooooo goooooooood.  Because it's on HBOOOOOOOOO.

Eric just stands around being hot.  I don't mind that, but it would be great if he would also exhibit a personality trait beyond that of "perv."  I'm sorry, but the objectification of a species (human) and gender (women) should not be hot.  Why are people drooling all over this guy?  And did I mentioned that he had girl hair for the first few episodes?  Flowy blond girl hair.

Jason stands around being hot.  Since he is hotter and dumber funnier than Eric, I am more tolerant of this.  In fact, he, Jessica and Lafayette should have their own show.  The three of them could be current college roommates/former college roommates/co-owners of a winery/a dissatisfied married couple and their friend/CSI investigators/high school students who sing their feelings, or all of the above, and it would still be less of a hot mess than True Blood.

Tara yells a lot.  I mean a lot.  That girl only has one volume.  I get it, her life sucks.  Apply for some federal aid and go to college.  "The man Ah looooved! The man Ah looooooooved is dayyyyyead!"  Oh shut up.

Bill doesn't have a personality.  Much like Sooooookah, he also has a terrible, terrible accent.  This is sometimes accompanied by terrible, terrible flashbacks.  Also, no mention is made of the fact that Bill is a murderer.  Not all the vampires on True Blood are bad guys, I guess, but I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.  Bill may be sucking down the synthetic blood now, but he could have been drinking human blood without killing humans since the Civil War.  Sadly, that was just inconvenient, and more sadly, no one on this show seems to care.  It's great that Sookie wants to overlook multiple homicides on the part of a self-reformed baddie, but do you have to get engaged to the committer of multiple homicides? 

You want to throw political realism into a fantasy television show?  Why doesn't someone indict one of these vampires for murder?  Much like your eternal life, the statute of limitations never ends, bitches.

Sam is boring.  Sam is so boring that I had to sit and think, "Who am I missing?  I thought this show had more characters?" for several minutes before going, Oh, Saaaaaaaam.  And have I mentioned that I have easily watched 12 episodes of this show between seasons 1, 2 and 3?  For crying out loud, it's not The Wire.  I shouldn't have to take notes to keep everyone straight when there's less than 10 characters.

For those of you who have never seen it, here's how an episode of True Blood goes.

Sudden violence.  Opening credits.  Sookie is outraged in a ridiculous accent.  Tara cries.  Lafayette says something witty.  Jason takes off his shirt.  Eric walks around without pants.  Sex fantasy.  Sex dream.  Boobs.  More violence.  Jessica says something funny.  Bill broods, and you're supposed to think it has something to do with his former life as a Southern gentleman, but it's really just that it's hard for a British guy to do a Southern accent.  Poorly drawn analogy to gay rights.  Tara yells.  Lafayette says something witty.  Tara and Sookie hug.  Jason says something dumb.  Male ass.  Something violent.  Boobs.  One of the southern extras says something racist.  Sam pops in to remind you that he's still on this show.  Jessica gets into hijinks, the consequences of which are dealt with over the course of the next five and a half episodes.  Eric says something blandly threatening/sexist while looking at Sookie's boobs.  Sookie is outraged in a ridiculous accent.  Eric and Bill express their total admiration for Sookie and her sassy boringness.  Something happens to advance the overall plot a millimeter.  Boobs.  Something violent.  Gasp.  End of episode. 

I'll take my Emmy now, thanks.




* This, actually, is my biggest beef.  I know much has been said of the weird Bella-Edward dynamic, but for me, it all comes down to the fact that none of the bad guys are worth fussing over.  Victoria?  Can't seem to kill one measly little human in the span of a year.  Literally, all she had to do was run up to Bella one day and snap her neck.  Done-zo.  Why did she always fail to achieve this goal?  Because the werewolves (who are only allowed to patrol half the town) might get her?  Umm, wasn't she able to kill SEVERAL humans without the werewolves getting her?  Oh wait, was it because the psychic vampires might be able to anticipate and stop her?  ISN'T SHE A VAMPIRE TOO?  CAN'T SHE RUN AT LEAST AS FAST AS THEY CAN?  Even when she compiles an ARMY OF VAMPIRES, she can't kill one girl.  She can  kill a whole bunch of other randoms, but not the one freaking girl she set out to kill.

Then there's the Volturi, the evil European vampires (who receive a verbal smack down courtesy of the American Revolutionary Vampire in Book 4, thank you very much) who maintain law and order in vampire world so humans won't know they exist.  The humans who, as we are told repeatedly throughout the series, HAVE NO CHANCE OF KILLING A SINGLE VAMPIRE.  If the vampires are so invincible that only other vampires and werewolves can kill them, AND EVEN THIS REQUIRES THAT THEY TEAM UP, who gives a shit that the humans don't know?  At least when vampires were stakeable or burnable or head-cut-off-able, it made sense to not let humans find out about their existence, because clever humans could overpower them.  When you're a totally unbeatable rock-hard vampire who can walk out in the sun with no problems, why don't you just announce your presence to the world and start ruling it with your glittery fist?

Also, how do the humans not already know?  You're not a normal vampire that can suck the same human's blood basically forever.  YOU KILL EVERYTHING YOU BITE ON THE VERY FIRST NIBBLE, including ROOMFULS OF TOURISTS.  And you have to do this on a fairly regular basis.  It's not like you can eat once a year.  You might kill 365 humans a year, and you live FOREVER.  Take the three head Volturi dudes, creepy little Dakota Fanning and British kid, that's 18,250 dead people in one decade.  That's a fairly large liberal arts college.  How does the FBI not already have a file on you in VICAP?

Easy hours

I've been doing doc review for awhile now.

Every day.

For hours.

For months.

It's endless.

And often, when the subject of doc review is mentioned to coworkers or fellow lawyers, someone inevitably chuckles and says, "Well, it's easy hours, right?"

No, actually, it's not.  It's mind numbingly awful.  But whatever.  Lots of people have crappy jobs.

The problem is, I didn't decide to become a lawyer so I could bill "easy hours."  I became a lawyer to, I don't know, do legal-ly things.  Everyone has to pay their dues, and I figured mine would involve really boring research projects.  But no, it's not even that interesting.  Ninety-five percent of my job might as well come down to being able to tell blue from green. 

Gratitude is a funny thing.  I'm grateful I have a job when so many of my classmates still do not.  I'm grateful to have a job when so many people across the country do not.  I'm grateful for medical benefits.  I'm grateful that I will be allowed to assist (ie, do bitch work) for a trial in a few months.  I'm grateful that I'm no longer mooching off my parents.  I'm not so ungrateful that I'm willing to give any of those things up just yet.  

The thing is, I would be happy to be making $10 an hour again if I was actually gaining any practical skills whatsoever.

I'm starting to feel like an antagonist in an Ayn Rand novel.* 

A poorly written, misogynistic, pseudo-intellectual Ayn Rand novel.

Where I'm the bland, corporate whore bad-guy.**

It doesn't get much lower than that.






* Kind of a side note, but have you ever noticed that people who like Ayn Rand always think that they relate to the objectivist heroes, but really are just as sheep-like as the rest of us, only they lack adequate self-reflection skills?  I think about that more than I should.


** Not to belabor the point, but the good guys in Ayn Rand novels rape people.  So to be the bad guy, you know it's got to be pretty awful.

Well, here's a whole new low

When I got home tonight, I realized that I was out of clean dishes.  Unfortunately, I was super hungry and my dishwasher takes foreeeeeeeever.

So I covered my Barbri books with foil and ate off them. 

It worked surprisingly well.






(And it didn't occur to me until after writing this post that I could have taken a dirty dish out of the dishwasher and washed it by hand.)

I shouldn't admit this, BUT...

I love studying to The Hills.

It makes me feel so smart.

What dreams may come

I had my first bar-related nightmare of the season last night.

I was taking the bar in my parents' basement with Diego, a friend from my high school Drumline, someone I grew up with, and three nameless strangers.  For the record, Diego was wearing his barrister wig.  My mom and all the ladies from church growing up were also there, acting as proctors.

As I stared at the criminal procedure essay question, thinking, "This is a cut-and-dried case of evidence being suppressed because of illegal search and seizure," I couldn't make my fingers type.  Instead, all they wanted to type about how it was racist to name the defendant in the hypothetical "Mendoza" and the cop "O'Reilly." 

Then the second page of my answers disappeared.  I don't know how, but I remember all the other test-takers in the dream advising me to hurry, go find it, don't bother retyping, so I jumped up and started searching for my missing page.  (Under my bed, as it turns out.)

Then, as I returned, to laboriously type the words, The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.  Evidence collected in a manner that violates this prohibition ... my mother started telling me a story.

Now, here's the thing.  I love my mom.  But she, like many people, has trouble with how to deal with me when I'm stressed.  (Either because my dad also did the professional-standard-exam-thing once upon a time, or simply because our personalities are more similar, he does not have this quirk.)  When I'm thinking, "Oh no, oh no!  I can't find the gift card I purchased for so-and-so's wedding!*"  my mom is the person who starts telling you the stuff that even five year olds knew was unhelpful: It's always the last place you put it.  (And if I remembered where that was, I would have it right now.)  Retrace your steps.  (Um, obviously, still missing the last step.  Hence the gift card being lost.)

And when I studied for the Texas Bar last summer at my parents' house, my dad knew to leave me alone, or occasionally pop in to ask me if I wanted to run to the gas station with him for a fountain Diet Coke.  My mom, on the other hand, would pop in A LOT, asking me if I wanted to take a break. 

There's a sale at Macy's. 

Your brother Alpha was supposed to read a book over the seventh grade summer, will you make sure he did it?  Kids listen to their peers more than their parents, you know.  (Yeah Mom, but I'm not Alpha's peer.  I'm his sister.  I'm his sister who is twelve years older than him and will watch South Park with him, he's not going to take scholastic advice from me.) 

I made dinner, do you want some?  (Despite the phrasing, this is not a request.)

My personal favorite: You need a break, will you vacuum the living room for me? 

In addition to frequently asking me to take breaks that I do not want to take, or breaks that are not breaks but manual labor, my mom will also want to come tell me stories.  Everyone in our family likes telling stories.  Charlie is the best at it, his stories are always hilarious.  Echo and my dad are also pretty good.  (I'm better on paper, as Echo frequently-snottily reminds me.)  Alpha seems to have not yet chosen a story telling style. 

But even though we're pro-story-telling, study time is not story time.  Even Charlie, with his oh-so-hilarious tales of wonder and woe, better back the hell off when I'm studying. 

However, my mom does not obey this rule.  Perhaps it's her mistaken belief that I need a break, and though I have now begun refusing to vacuum the living room, she will provide me with a break via her tale of the funny thing Alpha's chickens did today. Of course, having a tendency to go off to Tangent Land, a story about chickens may suddenly transition into a story about Grandpa's diabetes.  Also not as interesting as one might think. 

And as I sat, in dream world, trying to explain the exclusionary rule with fingers that only wanted to type about racism, my mom launched into a story that I knew dream-instinctively would be ennnnnnndlessssssss.  And so I began to yell, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP, for the love of all the angels in heaven, CAN'T YOU SEE I'M TAKING THE BAR?!?!?!

At which point all the women from church -- Sunday School teachers, Young Women's leaders -- frowned at me disapprovingly.

Ahhh, I knew you ladies were here for a reason.   

















* This has happened twice now, and incidentally, to people who may or may not read this blog.  Don't worry dear friends, I bought you new gift cards yesterday and will be mailing them shortly.  Miss Manners assures me I have up to a year to deliver said wedding gift, but I will only take eight months for one couple and a month for the second.  Because I'm classy like that.

Conspicuous consumption

In case you ever wonder why people in impoverished countries both admire/resent Americans, look no further than your good internet friend Ru from Austin.

I now own TWO laptops.

Why?

Because my Macbook Pro, which I love more than I could love a human child (what?  Is that offensive?) has an outdated operating system.  I am planning to take the Utah bar in T-24 days.  In its infinite wisdom (and I say that with all due respect, Character and Fitness People), the Utah Bar chose to mandate Exam Soft for all bar-taking purposes, instead of the faaaaaaaaar superior Exam 4.  (Repeat: far superior.)  So I set out to update my Macbook (sweet, sweet Macbook) and then, wait a second, I also need Bootcamp?  And Windows 7?

Grumble grumble grumble.

So instead of buying a lot of stuff that I don't want for the computer I adore, I waddled (yes, waddled, all I've eaten during my study sessions have been chips, salsa and jelly beans) off to my local Best Buy and bought a brand new Toshiba PC,* preloaded with Windows 7.  IT WAS ACTUALLY THE CHEAPER OPTION.

But hey, at least I will have the fun adventure of posting a lightly used laptop on Craigslist next month. 



*Please don't be jealous, Macbook Pro.  Toshiba means nothing to me.  Nothing!**

** Please don't take that the wrong way, Toshiba, you're great too.  And I really need you to perform for me on July 27.  It's just that you and I are not meant to be.  I'm sure you will find the love you're looking for ... on Craigslist.

I just realized ...

I'm watching Legally Blonde while I study for the bar.

Elle Woods graduated in 2004.

She would be a 6th year associate right now.

Wowzers.