6.26.2007

Now to help draw up plans for our bomb shelter wine cellar

I'm driving a car for this week in Israel. It's a white Daihatsu Sirion that we've affectionately named milk dud (milky for short) it's white, looks like a miniature milk delivery truck, and is a bit of a dud.

Yesterday, I parked on a filled in hole that was caused by a katyusha rocket.

As well, apparently there is a place not that far from here where one buys hotdogs that are stuffed (made?) in front of you. (As in they put the meat inside the casing while you watch.)

6.24.2007

Wasted Manhours

There is a dearth of trash receptacles in the arrivals lounge in terminal three of the London Heathrow Airport. In fact, I saw more people engaging in bicycling (you know, where two people lay on their backs, put their feet in the air, and pedal against each other - as opposed to the type pictured to the left) than garbage cans.

I do understand the reasons for the lack of litter bins, but I have no idea about the bicycling.

Oh and the whole arrivals sequence in the movie Love Actually is only part rubbish.

6.21.2007

I do bite my thumb sir

While walking along Canary Wharf, I was told that one can say things that are offensive and still be politically correct if one is quoting something directly and does not show support for the proposition.

“There are three O’s of bad driving: Old, Oriental, and Ovaries.”

6.20.2007

Living by Analogy

As I sat there shaking my fist and yelling consensus ad idem out my car window, I knew I was going into the correct profession. It was a timely confirmation, having just endured articling week, secured future employment, and realized that I’ll be married to my profession.

Articling week is an interesting experience. It’s like the biological clocks of most second year law students begin ticking and they are all start dating with the intent to wed, with the added reality TV show feel of contrived junior high-like rules that everyone has to follow. If it were a Discovery Channel special it would be called “Legal Mating Rituals.”

First, firms post openings much like personal ads in the classified section. Some firms prefer long walks on the beach, others prefer a good intimate conversation, and yet others prefer to make you slave away for them while they crush your soul and dampen your spirits. Next, upon seeing the postings, law students send in their application packages to the firms they like (or all of them, for those using the shotgun approach) in hopes of getting asked on a first date. First dates are awkward. Both the firms and the students are trying to figure out if they like the other party and if the other party likes them (a “good fit” if you will), all while operating under strict timelines and with numerous third parties. Some students play hard to get, others are quite forward about their feelings, while others embody desperation.

In the end, the firms ask a subset of the students it dated on second dates. These second dates vary from an interview over a classy dinner, to an interview over coffee, to an interview over dinner with several of the other potential students being pitted against each other.
Then comes the suspense. Students wonder if their favourite firm will propose to them and firms wonder if their choice students will say yes.

Now enter the contrived rules. No firm can propose before a set date and time. Firms can express interest in students, but they cannot pressure students to divulge what they will say to a proposal. There can even be a blackout time during which the firms cannot contact the students.

Finally it’s 8am. Phone calls go out and firms propose to students. Students that accept a proposal are engaged. Their marriage will take place just over a year later, barring any unforeseen circumstances (of course, they all stay motivated during the next year). As of 8:04, the grapevine gets going; who’s engaged? To whom? And who received numerous proposals?

The dating analogy continues; some marriages are happy and long-lasting, while others end divorce – an associate may be courted and wooed by another firm, or choose to go in-house, or because the associate no longer wants to practice law. I wonder how a firm feels if it thinks that it was the reason that a student was turned off of the legal profession.

Now in lieu of an actual wrap-up of my post: in London, I heard a TV announcer refer to toilet paper as loo-roll.

6.11.2007

Your face better taste like candy

If giants existed, I wonder if they would play dominoes with flat screen TVs.

It is interesting to discover what one ponders whilst chasing a distant red dot along miles of Alberta highway on the return from an adventure.

Some realizations I have reached during long stretches of highway driving:

  • Veal is cute
  • Alberta is a beautiful province, big, but beautiful
  • There are lots of trees and cows and sheep
  • Some trucks do not like being passed
  • Nicole has interesting ways of trying to invoke jealousy
  • It is not good to drive whilst feeling stuffed like a gopher in Torrington
  • Em can climb up the side of mountains
  • Candy Mountain is not a funny allusion to someone that has not seen it
  • Erin makes funny noises when poked
  • Cotton Candy can melt
  • Nick Tam remembers the giant dinosaur
  • Bugs like windshields
  • Lightning is pretty