The People I Work With

Just to give you an idea of the people I work with..

At the law firm, there are many soon-to-be fledgling practitioners of law who go by the name of paralegals, the likes of which I am not. A fellow paralegal of the Jewish faith was in mid-conversation with another paralegal, and I heard him expressing dissatisfaction with his LSAT score that he took over the weekend.

Since I felt that we were on those kinds of terms, I sent him an E-pop asking how bad he could have scored since I already made him out to be a pretty intelligent guy. His reply, a terse "176". For those unaware, the perfect score is a 180, which by the way 99.99% of people who take the test do not score.

Just as the juices of jealousy started to overwhelm me with the surge of a tidal wave, he E-popped back saying "Just kidding, but I didn't do as well expected.."

My reply this time was "ha! better for both of us.. otherwise i had already made up my mind to start hating you for being a genius.."

..more to come on my fellow employees later..

Rabbits and Pythons

I had a dream last night.

Driving in a busted pickup truck on a stretch of Gee's Mill Road where it starts to go downhill, a dead rabbit lay in the middle of the road. We stopped and got out of the truck, and the one peculiar thing I noticed was that the rabbit was unnaturally large. I picked it up by the hind legs and threw it into the ditch that had almost filled up with dirty rainwater.

When you are in the midst of a dream, things seem so palpable to the point that when something formally understood as completely out of the ordinary occurs, you react as though it were a normality. For example, after I threw the dead rabbit of gigantic proportions into the pool of water, it began to choke. Then it suddenly came to life as it began to swim out of the water with graceful, human-like breaststrokes.

Thinking nothing of how impossible this scenario was, I quickly scooped the rabbit into my arms. Like a true wild rabbit in the presence of a human, I could feel the terror that was coursing through entire body of the animal. I myself had some sort of nervous reflex and threw it into the nearby brush, where I promptly saw it devoured by a python as thick as a telephone pole.

To be an animal of prey, you must be in an ever-changing state of some form of all-inclusive panic. Because they are shaped by constant exposure to this environment, they are at peace with having a hair trigger between serenity and absolute terror.

Since I was old enough to appreciate it, I've always been grateful that humans haven't had a natural predator since the advance of modern civilization some 10,000 years ago. If that were not the case, I'd probably shit myself every time someone tapped me on the shoulder.

日本語で書くのはどう？？

僕の英語を喋れない友人へ

あなたたちはこのページを時々見て見ていますかも知りませんが、そうしたら、私に言えば、日本語で俺のブロッグにします！

では、日本語で読みたかったら、ちゃんと書き込んで下さい。

ーアレックス

Greetings From China

No, the title of this post does not mean that I've taken my superhuman ability to teach English to the land of the dragon. What I'm referring to is the neighborhood on the Island of Manhattan that I've managed to secure adequate housing.

I had a tough choice to make. Move into an $1100/month apartment in Chinatown, or into a $600/month apartment in Queens both of which are equidistant from my place of work at a law firm near Grand Central Station. Because I am an idiot, and perhaps inherited an inability to make wise financial decisions in the short-run, I chose the former.

I imagine the things I could've done, or the items I could've purchased with an extra $500 a month, and I start to panic. To combat this guilt, I use a fairly simple logistic tool to soothe myself back into a state of serenity.

My current room is just big enough for a small bed and desk. My room in Queens would've been much larger, which means I would've bought expensive items with which to furnish it, and would've been spending more in the long-run. And by long-run, I mean two months maximum.

At the conclusion of two months friends, I will have thought up another device with which to trick myself into a false state of contentment. In the meantime, I've managed to lose my camera, so apologies for no photographic whirlwind tour of my neighborhood, which by the way is SO INSANE!!!

A Picture is Worth...

Throughout the news coverage of this recent upheaval in the global financial market, I must say I'm positively impressed with the photography. A phrase along the lines of 'Market Turmoil' or 'Financial Meltdown' is usually accompanied with an image of some poor sap who saw most, if not all of his unknowledgable client's assets vanish faster than when the Millenium Falcon jumps into hyperspace.

Its no easy task to capture an image that can connote misery, anguish, dourness, and all the other synonyms meaning extremely sad and/or depressed. Look at this unlucky fellow...



He's looking at the screen, hoping in vain that someone will bop him on the head and tell him, "this was all a dream... you can wake up now..." He stands there like a monument while thinking, "how did it come to all this... My life was so good before...what on earth is happening to me?"

My utmost admiration goes out to the people in charge of matching the headlines with the photos. Keep up the good work!

Electoral Map

I said I wouldn't inject any political commentary into this blog, but it can't be helped. How funny it would be if this were the outcome though, seriously...

JOHN MCCAIN!!! OWNED!!!