Zombie Help?!

As one of the foremost Zombologists in the world, I am often called on for consultation regarding the inevitable zombie invasion. Cities around the world are grossly unprepared. FEMA will not be coming to your rescue.

Even though zombies have caused problems in the past, we have gotten soft.

This is where I can help you. As one of the foremost Zombologists in the world, I am ready to assist you in developing escape plans, alternative plans, rescue plans, and help you plan your Zombie Emergency Kit. Just send me a map of where you live and some basic description of the surround area. You can draw the map in paint or whatever.

Just post your picture, map, question, or email address in the comments section and I will get to work immediately. I do this as a public service.

The question I hear constantly is: "What should I have in my zombie preparation kit? I know what I need for earthquakes and hurricanes, but I can't find any information on what I need for the inevitable Zombie invasion that will more than likely kill everyone I know."

Good question. Here's a good starting point. Remember, you'll need to customize your kit depending on where you live.

A kit should be a backpack to make it mobile, it should include:

1. A shotgun with a few boxes of ammo. Go with multiple kinds. A bit o' buckshot, a bit of good ol' fashion phosphorus rounds. Saw it off to make it more carryable. Get a cool ass post-apocalyptic leather holster for it. Even zombies will think twice before messing with you.

2. Matches and lighters. Do not use these to light the zombies on fire. Burning zombies can still move...but now their hug becomes deadly.

3. Pictures of your friends and family. You will never see them again.

4. Some sort of cool ass walkie talkie CB radio thing. This way you can listen to the police and local rednecks as they fight a losing battle. Eventually the empty static will be all you hear...but who knows.

5. 9mm handgun with hollow point ammo. The hollow tips will cause the Zombie heads to explode on contact or will blow their bodies into little bite size pieces. Plus the gun and ammo isn't very heavy. Save the last bullet for yourself.

6. Duct tape. Anything can be repaired with this amazing substance. If you lack the cajones to kill your injured friend (who will be a zombie soon), you could always duct tape him to a chair and leave him to undergo the horrifying change all by himself. Make sure to apologize at least once before leaving.

7. A Zombie Bat of some kind. Machetes also work well. As the Zombie Survival Guide correctly points out, a weapon like this will never need to be reloaded and it won't run out of ammo. You simply cannot afford to be caught without something like this. Save the last swing for yourself.

8. A friend stupid enough to hold off the undead horde while you make a run for it. I don't know how you put this person in your kit, but you need him/her. Let their plucky humor and upbeat disposition be their death.

9. Medical supplies. Don't be fooled by popular video games. There aren't going to be plants growing around the city that instantly heal you. Furthermore, nothing can save you once infection sets in. Your medical supplies should consist of Speed, 2 year supply of Prozac, sedatives (for knocking out a screaming injured person before they give away your position to every zombie on the west coast), some kind of anti-biotic (useless against zombie bites, scratches, etc, but helpful for when you step on a nail). Maybe some bandages. Small bottle of bleach inside bottle marked pain reliever (feed this to an injured person that you aren't going to bring along with you. This is better than wasting your ammo on them and is less noisy than whacking them with a bat).

10. Beef Jerky. Food will be hard to get. Dried meets that will be good for a long time are your best bet. You could always roast dead zombie, but Zombologists are divided on how safe cooked zombie is and nutritionists deride it altogether.

11. Can opener. You don't know how many people have gotten to a safe place with food only to discover that no can opener means no dinner. That's an amateur mistake.

12. Leather Jacket, leather pants, leather gloves. These clothing items serve many purposes. They can go a while without needing to be washed. They will protect you from zombie bites and scratches. Perhaps their best trait is that they will scare the everloving sh*t out of other survivors. They will immediately suspect that you command a terrible post-apocalyptic motorcycle gang. YOU WILL BE OBEYED.

13. Something that gives you hope, because in reality, there is very little. You will die a horrifying, painful, and incredibly entertaining death. I will listen to it over my walkie talkie thing.

14. A detailed map of the surrounding area. Preferably one that marks abandoned military forts that have stockpiles of weapons, food, water, and are really out of the way. If you have a map like this, refuse to share it. Kill anyone else that has this map.

15. Helicopter keys. Use in tandem with the map. If you don't have a helicopter, get one.

Things You Don't Need:

1. Psychotropic drugs. Holy sh*t, you don't want to trip out when the zombies are coming for you.

2. A cell phone. The towers will not be working. The entire power grid will be out. Your phone is a waste of space. If it works, it will only encourage you to try and save your doomed loved ones. This is a zombie invasion, not a Disney movie. Your friends and loved ones are dead. They will scream out your name as they perish, but at least you won't have to listen to it. Set your phone to vibrate if you insist on bringing it.

3. A dog. Many Zombologists believe that dogs can be turned to the undead. I am in this particular school of thought myself. Even if your dog doesn't go zombie, you can't trust him not to bark at a crucial moment. I guess you could always bring him along as an auxiliary food supply, but that seems mean.

4. Your mom. She's too old. She won't make it. Tell her you're coming for save her, then get out of town as fast as possible.

5. Your car keys. Your car will be useless. The highways are going to be clogged with zombies and wrecked vehicles. Go ahead and bring the keys if you own a monster truck or a reinforced bus with chainsaws strapped to the front and sides.

6. Soda pop. It won't taste good warm. Go with bottled water.

7. Bowling ball. Way too heavy. Only bring this if you suspect you're in Shawn of the Dead 2 or some other comedic zombie invasion.

Remember, the invasion is inevitable, but your survival isn't.

aLs

Rape Minimized

The punishment does not fit the crime.

In this case, William Edward Ronca raped a 9 year old girl several times a week for two years. She ended up pregnant and gave birth to a child by caesarean section. Get this, the prick only got 25 years in prison. He may end up serving only 85% of that. He could be back out on the streets in less than 20 years. Here's a video of his sentencing.

Let's think about that for one second.

2 Rapes a week * 2 years = 208 Rapes.

Let's say he serves 20 years.

That means he's serving a year for every 10.4 rapes.

The sentence is a miscarriage of justice. It's just one more example of the system minimizing rape victims. This man doesn't deserve to ever again see the light of day. He's lucky that he wasn't lynched by an angry mob. I simply can't understand how he got off with such a lenient sentenced.

I hope he gets shanked in prison.

aLs

Grody

Both the prosecutor and the Judge in this situation should be ashamed. They were having sex in the court room and in the women's shower. The judge should be disbarred. The prosecutor should be punished harshly, but for some reason I find myself angrier at the Judge.

aLs

Frat Boy Law Student

In my search for housing this summer, I suddenly had an amazing idea. What if I could travel back in time! That's right....why not live in a dorm?

To understand this particular line of thinking you have to understand my situation. I have to pick a place to live before getting to City X. That means I can't evaluate it. I know how crappy dorms are. It's a known evil. However, it will come with a bed, high speed internet, and a desk. That's three things I desperately need.

Also, I am nearly broke. I can afford a dorm room. I can't afford much else. Lots of apartment people aren't willing to rent to me for just a few months.

So what do you think? Should I take a shot at living out my Frat-Boy-Law-Student dreams?

aLs

Video Vets

Visit the site above if you want to watch testimonials from troops that have been to Iraq and believe we shouldn't be there. You can vote on which video you think is the best. The most popular video will be made into a commercial directed by Oliver Stone and broadcasted nationally.

aLs

A Veteran On The War

VideoVets: John Bruhns

aLs

Making The Summer Work

I'm trying to plan out the beginning of my summer. Aside from finals, many things are up against me right now. Here's my tentative schedule:

Today: Study for Finals
Tomorrow: Prepare tutorial and study
Wednesday: Give tutorial and study
Thursday until May 11th: Study and Do finals

May 12: Move everything I own into storage in less than 24 hours. Attempt to clean apartment.

May 13: Get in car, drive to City X.

May 14: Show up for first day of work.

Also, I am nearly broke. Do you see the dilemma? The last time I moved it took like 3 days. I am so screwed.

aLs

I Pity The 1L

I can't help the fact that I pity Girl right now. She is going through 1L finals. Finals during the first year of law school pretty much cement a person's standing in the hierarchy of student ranks. She knows this, as do all law students slugging through those horrible exams. That's what makes them so hard. Imagine what it must feel like to know that the road to your future is being paved (or not paved) in 12 days. An entire year worth of effort distilled into less than two weeks. It sucks braying donkey balls.

Girl likes to be around other people when she's studying. She tells me that being alone at times like this makes her feel so stressed out that she can't get anything done. That makes me one of the worst boyfriends she could choose. I need to be alone when I'm trying to study for something like finals. I don't mind compromising and letting her come over later in the evening...but the compromise never works out like I'd like.

Usually the deal goes something like this: "How about you come over for dinner and hang out for an hour or so and then we get back to work."

Sadly, once here...an hour turns into several hours and then she falls asleep. As the night grows longer I start to get irritated. I feel like I tried to compromise and be a nice guy and instead my good intentions are being stepped on. I realize that she is going through what will be one of the most difficult periods in her life, but so am I. 2L finals are hard as hell and stressful in their own special ways.

I don't like asking people to leave.

I've mentioned this to her before and she always apologizes and promises me it won't keep happening. Yet, here I am, facing down the fact that I am an independent person that likes his space and she's not like that. It's coming down to a clash of personalities...

And it makes me wonder. If having my space invaded 5 times a week makes me cringe, what the hell would marriage do to me?

aLs

Salary and Finals

I was speaking with the professor that teaches the class that I tutor. The conversation temporarily veered off into a discussion of payment for summer jobs. He was talking about one of the 1L's that landed a job that paid 1500 a week.

I couldn't help it...I felt immediate jealousy. I know that other law students all across the country do just as well or better...but I am not one of them. My grades are strong, but they are not strong enough for me to get that kind of job.

And at the same time, I know that my heart isn't into the kind of job that pays that much. I don't want to work 60-80 hours a week for the next ten years. I don't want to do boring legal work and ride cases that drag on for years without resolution. I want as normal life as possible (that means as close to 40 hours a week as I can get) and I want to enjoy the legal work I'm engaged in.

So where does that leave me? What am I going to get paid? I have no idea. I know that my summer job is paying 500 a week. I know that if I were hired the job would only require me to work 40-45 hours a week. I know that I would have full health insurance, retirement, and an infinite bus pass. During the interview, I never asked what first year associates earned. Maybe I should have, but I hate asking what other people make.

Sigh. I hope that going to law school doesn't land me a job paying what I could have earned anyways. That would seem a bit pointless.

Finals are about a week away. I'm trying to hold my stress at bay. I won't go so far as to claim that the end is nigh or that I am going to fail all my classes. I know better than that.

I won't lie, I'm shooting for the curve. It lowers my stress to pretend that all I care about is making the curve. The truth is, when I think about losing my rank or my gpa shrinking, I get a sickly feeling in my stomach. I can't wait to get out of law school. The curve system sucks.

aLs

Andrew Rosenblum Sucks

Andrew Rosenblum is officially the biggest asshole of April 18, 2007. Seriously dude, why don't you do us a favor and step in front of a moving bus.

Here's a link to his show.

If you'd like to ask Viacom to remove Andrew from MTV, email them at press@viacom.com.

You're a prick Andrew. I hope you are shunned for years.

aLs

Random Thoughs With aLs

Monday night was Jeff K's birthday party. A small group of us got together for dinner at a local pizza joint called deetos. Eggs, Pat, Studebaker, Jeff K., Shrek, and another girl who's name I forget.

It was a great time. We were by far the loudest group in the joint. Eggs told us about his kick ass new job. Jeff K. let us know he's going to London for summer. It was like, for an hour or two life was pretty good. Finals weren't around the corner. Studebaker told a story that he claimed was the most embarrassing moment of his life. It was. Without going into the story, I'll just say that it involved a spider biting him in a place a man should never be bitten. It was such a horrifying story that afterwards I started thinking to myself, "was that male bonding?"

Yep, us menfolk have to tell stories about our crotches to feel closer. Not all guys are like that...but I personally wouldn't trust a man that didn't have atleast one story to tell me involving an injury to his crotch.

I'm kidding. Or am I?

Subject Change

There are those of you who cannot understand why I would waste my time being a "gamer." If you can watch the video below and not agree that you are looking at beautiful art, then...well...you suck.



The day will come when the video game awards will be as big or bigger than the Oscars. I know that sounds like complete crap, but it's true.

The video game industry is already beating the movie industry. Imagine what it will be ten years from now!

One Final Comment

Keith Olberman makes an incredibly good point regarding the Virginia Tech Shooting. Why do we have so little grief for the soldiers that are dying every day in Iraq? So far we've lost over 3000. It seems to me that only the small town newspapers realize how personal each one of those losses can be.

On the lighter side...here's a Survival spoof called "My Black Friend." It's about a white guy's search to make a black friend. I know that sounds bad, but watch it. It's hilarious.

aLs

Goodbye Stupid Class

Today I had to make an argument for an imaginary free speech case on appeal. The arguments were in front of my legal writing professor, who was pretending to be a judge. The final paper for this class was turned in a month ago. This fake court proceeding was not graded and was only attended by the students participating and my legal writing professor.

My legal writing professor has had a grudge against me all year long. At the beginning of the year I was excited to see him and said something like, "Mr. LegalWritingProfessor, I'm so happy I got into your class again. I'm looking forward to it."

He answered with, "You almost hit me with your car last week."

He then proceeded to describe an incident in a place I have never driven. I told him that it couldn't be me, but he didn't really sound convinced.

Anyhow, he interrogated the other students when they were giving their spiels. However, when he got to me he wouldn't get off a few of the basic points. He kept drilling away until I ran out of time. I didn't get to hit my other major points at all. Somehow that made me unprepared.

At the end of the ordeal, the professor said nice things about everyone else, but went out of his way to slam me. He said I wasn't taking it seriously and that I was unprepared. I wanted to stick my tongue out at him and cross my arms in defiance.

I admit that I did most of my preparing only about 20 minutes before I gave my speech, but I spent a long time writing that stupid paper. I knew the law. If he had let me get to my points it wouldn't have appeared that I was so unprepared.

Did I take this exercise totally seriously? NO.

It was ungraded. It's the end of the semester. Nobody saw it but me and a few other students. If you want me to take something seriously at this point in the semester, you need to make it worth a few points. Otherwise, Frack off.

Legal writing is dead and done. Thank the Lords of Kobol.

aLs

Crosswords

I keep getting phone calls from my parents. My Dad is on the north slope (tippy top of Alaska) and he does crossword puzzles to stay entertained. When he gets stumped he calls either me or my Mom. If my Mom gets stumped, she calls me.

If I get stumped (which is every time), I ask my best friend.

Wikipedia.

I come off as pretty brilliant when I use the computer to come up with answers. Home of the minotaur? That's obviously Crete. Parts of Caduceus? Serpents! Duh.

Wikipedia is cheating. When else have I cheated?

I never plagiarized in college. The punishment for that was just too extreme. Did I cheat at anything in college? Ummmnnnnn, I don't think I did actually. I didn't have to cheat. College was like walking through the park. Cheating would have made it harder, not easier.

In High School I cheated all the time. I would write answers on my arms. I would sneak things into the exams. Did I plagiarize in high school? Hell yes I did. There was no chance of getting caught if my source was off the radar a bit. I would copy things and then insert errors so that it looked like I did the work myself.

I cheated in high school because I was bored. I never needed to cheat. Half the time I would go through the trouble of sneaking answers into an exam, only to realize I had memorized them all by going to the trouble of cheating. High School was so dumbed down that frankly, I am not surprised that half of America can't read at a 5th grade level.

Have I ever cheated in Law School? HELL NO. You only have to get caught once to end everything. Quite frankly, I don't think cheating would be that useful in law school. I guess a person could go through the trouble of sneaking an outline into an exam, but you'd never get away with it. Law students are ultra competitive around exam time. If they saw a cheater, they'd burn 'em at the stake.

I heard that there were a few cheaters at my school. They would come into an exam and do a brain dump on the scratch paper. A brain dump is when you memorize an entire outline or a ton of acronyms or whatever, then you write it all out as soon as you can. I do brain dumps all the time in exams, but I wait until the time starts, which is just fine. Apparently there were some assholes in my class that thought it was okay to do brain dumps as soon as they got into the classroom.

Those law students are going to make shitty lawyers. They were too stupid to know that they were cheating.

I gotta go. Wikipedia time.

aLs

Not Funny & Zombie Plans

The perfect bacon sandwich has a mathematical formula. You can check that out here.

I sat down to write this post, thinking, "I'm going to be really funny. I haven't been funny in a long time."

That was the original theme of this blog. Sadly, I sat here and I sat here, but I couldn't think of anything funny to say. All I could think of was how badly I want out of this town right now. I'm tired of finals already...even though they won't start for another three weeks.

I haven't had a real break since 2004. I went straight from senior year of college into law school. I've taken summer courses my last two summers. This coming summer will be my first break from school in so long. I can't hardly remember the freedom of Nine to Five.

Anyhow, I'm sorry my blog is such a drag. I'll try harder to be funny.

I spoke with another law student last night, he admitted to fearing the inevitable zombie invasion. We both agreed that a zombie invasion would be one of the worst possible events imaginable, but it would also be one of the awesomest events possible. I am going to develop some escape drawings of my apartment and city. For most of you these drawings will be useless, but I hope that they will provide you with some kind example that you can use to create your own escape plan. Remember, escaping is half the battle.

Time to outline.

aLs

ALS The Clerk?

The Career Services people at my school are trying to get me to apply for some clerkships. They point out to me that clerkships can be an amazing career opportunity that will help me build up connections and demonstrate my abilities. Firms will bow to my amazing clerkship powers and beg me to work for them. Clearly, the world is a law clerk's oyster.

I just don't know. The idea of spending a year or two doing nothing but researching sounds boring as all hell to me. I want to get up in front of people and argue. I want to lean back in my comfy executive leather chair and listen to people's problems while I smoke a pipe and nod. I'd like to be the pitbull that the good guy unleashes on the bad guy. I could also handle being the pitbull that is unleashed on the good guy. Woof. I won't get to do any of that as a law clerk. Tell me if I'm wrong. I know that there are some real attorneys reading this blog.

I have switched into power mode. Yesterday I powered through about 25% of all the material we have covered so far in evidence. I believe I will be totally caught up by the end of the week if I keep it up.

I recently heard that someone I used to be friends with has landed in hard times. In college, I introduced him to some of my friends. Some of those guys were not the highest quality people to hang out with. It's just, I felt bad that my friend was having trouble making friends at college. He was from a small town, and the much larger (still tiny) town was strange to him.

He fell in with that crowd. Eventually I outgrew the crowd and made different friends. My friend, he just kept hanging out with them. He started skipping his classes and ignoring his work to hang out with the not so great friends I hooked him up with.

Eventually he failed out of college or quit or some bullshit like that.

Years later, things aren't that hot for him. We aren't enemies, but we aren't that great of friends either.

I have to wonder, what would have become of my friend if I hadn't introduced to him to the bad people? Would he have found a way to screw things up without me? Is it my fault that things suck for him now? I feel guilty.

Girl is staying over tonight. No matter how many times we have the "I'm not getting my work done and I need some space" talk, I still find myself wanting. I try and put my foot down, but it doesn't seem to work. If things don't change, I know I am going to start getting angry when my work isn't done. I don't know why I need to be alone to get stuff done, but I just can't seem to work when someone else is here. I need to be alone.

How much space is reasonable for someone that has been in a relationship for 5 months? Is seeing the person once a week, maybe twice, kosher?

I wonder.

aLs

Happy April Fools

April Fools day is my favorite holiday. It's the only day of the year that people have to accept being pranked. If they don't, they're total squares. Needless to say, I didn't pull off any pranks this year. I thought about it, but I was too busy studying. I know that's a lame excuse, but I couldn't help it. When I start getting work done I don't like to interrupt myself. I was taken in by two corporate pranks today. First off, Gmail pranked me with their "Paper Mail" thing. Basically, they were promising to print out emails and send them to us in the mail if we wanted them. They were going to be free and they were going to recoup the loss by advertising on the backs of the messages. I was floored. The second trick came to me from cartoon network. I was all excited to catch a special viewing of the Aqua Team Hunger Force movie....and they did show it. The showed it in the bottom corner of the television screen. It was about the size of a quarter. Jerks. Kudos to them though for tricking me and thousands of others.

In one month the semester will be over. Finals will begin. To parody the famous WWII quote..."I fear that we have awakened a giant and filled him with anxiety."

Finals haunt me. Yet, this semester may be different. I have my legal writing crap out of the way and I am getting to work on my outlines right now. I am hoping to be ready for finals when they come around this time.

I noticed that most of the posters disagreed with my position on lying. Whatever floats yer boat I guess. Here's another position of mine.

Lying by omission can sometimes be okay. For instance, I have never told Girl that I blog. If she were to ask me, "do you journal?", I could answer truthfully that I do not currently keep a journal. Now we know that technically I am telling the truth, but in reality I am kinda lying.

Morally I feel pretty clean when I lie by omission. If someone wants an answer, they need to learn how to ask the right questions. Lying by omission isn't really lying. It's like saying "damn" instead of "F*ck." Whenever I ask someone something that I suspect might result in such a lie, I make sure to tailor all my questions in a way that I cannot be lied to by omission.

I met seven State Supreme Court Justices the other day. Holy crap it blew my mind. I kept thinking, "here are the rock stars of the judiciary...and I'm like some crazy fan with a back stage pass."

Law students that met each other in school the first year are starting to get married. Isn't that insane! Getting married during law school to a law student you met last year is pure craziness. Getting engaged might not be so nutso, but getting married is out of this world scatterbrained.

Lizzaster is using her pull to help me get my car fixed. Her boyfriend, Paultacular has offered to help me repair my vehicle. It needs a leak fixed and the radiator fan worked on. There are a million other problems with the car, but those are the most important. I guess I just need to set a date and call him.

I'm tired, but I don't want to go to sleep. If I sleep, then tomorrow comes...

And then I have to work some more.

aLs