Saturday, April 15, 2006

Poker, Batman and nerds. Who needs a title after that?

Category: Humor, Law School

This article was originally published in the Georgetown Law Weekly on March 21, 2006.

There is a sense I get when I sit in class that people behind me do not approve of what I do on my computer during class. Don’t get uncomfortable: I do not view pornography, overtly violent pictures or Quicktime versions of Knight Rider. Nothing obscene. What I DO do is play online poker almost nonstop.

I will pause for a moment because I realize I just typed “do do” in a newspaper column and am currently laughing uncontrollably.

Ok, back to the story. I play solitaire, and it is almost an addiction. I choose to play poker because it is less committed than, say, World of Warcraft. I can play a hand when someone makes an asinine comment and finish well before he stops droning on and on.

I will pause for another moment and say that I am speaking specifically to the guy in my anti-trust class. Dude, shut up. You’re not a 1L anymore, you’ve got a job, stop it. The professor doesn’t care, no one else in class cares, the IM chat rooms talk about you and you make my soul tired. There is a reason we have call lists, and the fact that you speak every day may in fact show mastery of the subject on your part, but the only people who thank you for that are the people who are actually on call. Actually, now that I think I about it, keep talking. Especially next Monday; talk as much as you want then. In fact, I’ll give you a topic: the current system is antiquated and could be improved by you… discuss.

Anyway, online poker is great because I can actually stay better focused on class because I’m playing it. By injecting a sense of urgency at all times, my notes become more and more succinct, almost to the point of non-existence. Remember: brevity is the soul of wit, and me and my two-pages-of-notes-since-the-beginning-of-the-semester are witty to the tenth power. Here are the actual cut and pasted notes I took today:

I. Shareholder Suits.

A. Derivative
B. Direct

II. Recall: Pillsbury

A. 10Q clubs
B. All in

III. Deference to BoD decision

e.g. [some said by the tool man I hate that guy]
ii) GMU in Sw16 WTF?

In case you’re worried, I don’t play with real money. It is just loan money. If worst comes to worst and I don’t get a job, I’ll just fake my own death at graduation. I have the perfect plan: I’ll just go hunting with Dick Cheney. I’m not saying he would shoot me; those jokes are just plain old lame. Instead, one of my hippie-liberal friends will pretend to kill me out of disgust that I would go hunting with Cheney. We would then collect on the life insurance, because if there is one thing liberals like to do it is to stick it to the man. Speaking of sticking it to the man, one thing lost in all the Brokeback Mountain v. Crash furor is that Batman Begins got jobbed. I don’t think I’ve reacted as emotionally to a movie in recent memory as I have to that film. Best line from the movie?

Bad guy: “That’s all I know, I swear to God!”
Batman: “Swear to me!”

I think Chief Justice Robert should use that line when he swears in the next president.

Anyway, faking my own death has a lot of benefits. For example, my false death will allow to me turn into a traveling seer, akin to Ibn Battuta or Marco Polo, and I will wander the Mid-Atlantic seaboard dispensing poor legal advice to anyone who would be willing to risk the shoddiness of my work. I will be able to do this because I will take the California bar, which, as I understand it, allows you to take the bar even if you’ve never been to law school, even if you’ve never been to college, and even if you can’t actually produce a photo ID. I’m just kidding; those are just the qualifications to sit on the ninth circuit bench.

I realize that the last joke makes it seem like I am have something against the ninth circuit, but I don’t. What I would normally do right now to bolster my progressive-voter cred is to make fun of President Bush, but I gave that up for Lent. I was going to give up candy, but since last week’s column, people keep leaving me candy in my mailbox.

Falsifying my death will also give me a brief, beautiful respite from spam email and tele-marketers for at least three or four days. I can actually check my email account without having to hear about a Nigerian who needs help stashing $14 million or the Information Systems Broadcast.

By the way, I’ve decided to stop playing online poker for the next weeks. I tried to balance juggling poker with following the NCAA tournament last week, and it didn’t work out. I can only have so many windows open on my computer before the internet connection starts to slow down, and that is beginning to affect my ability to bid on Ebay items (again, loan money is fake money). The connection is only part of the story; the girl behind me keeps making angry noises when she sees me playing poker during class, as I mentioned at the beginning of this rambling, disorganized, pointless article (kinda reminds you of customary international law, huh?). Anyway, she sits behind me in Corporations and gets really irritated when I’m playing. For privacy’s sake I’ll call her Aurenlay. I thought she was mad because my playing was distracting her from class, but then I realized that she gets annoyed because I play so badly. I had misread a guy’s betting pattern after the flop and ended up losing a hand that I should have totally cleaned up on. For those of you who don’t know what any of that means, let me translate: I’m as incompetent in a virtual poker room as I am in Evidence. Both the cards and the judges are unforgiving.

***

I have been polling my friends and so far, there is only one person I know who has beaten me at The Nerd Test. I swore to her that, at the very least, there is no one around that can beat me at the Law Center, as it is heavily weighted towards science nerds. In the interests of proving that, I offer this challenge: anyone who can beat my high score of 94 in the Nerd Test (available here) will have receive an ice cream or sorbet from HaaaaagenDaz from me. You are on your honor to take it honestly. If you send me your scores, and nobody beats me, I’ll pick a lesser-nerd at random to receive the ice cream. Nerd on!

Note: the nerd ice cream contest has ended. T.S.

6 Comments:

Blogger Mrs. Non-Gorilla said...

where's my ice cream?

12:31 AM  
Blogger Chicago Typewriter said...

You can have it whenever you want! Just email me, yo.

11:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Damn! so close: 92.

2:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

3:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow. Not claiming ice-cream or anything, but I got a 99. I didn't think I was that bad.

- David

8:18 PM  
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