Getting a little behind

Sorry folks, I've basically been too lazy to post on here for the past few days, so here's a run down of the four things I have wanted to talk about. (Oops.)

From the Double Talk Department...

I don't know if he realizes it or not, but Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg came across like the neighborhood bully in a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle. He seems to really relish the idea of making boisterous claims about how big and bad Verizon is, how they're better then everyone else (who is of course stupid), but at the same time expects too much out of his better-than-everyone-else company. Some of the highlights:

On San Francisco's plan to establish a city-wide Wi-Fi network: "That could be one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard." Gee, it couldn't have anything to do with the city potentially becoming a direct competitor to his company's and probably providing a much cheaper service, could it? Sour grapes much?

On people complaining about "unrealistic" cell phone service expectations: "Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?" he said. "The customer has come to expect so much. They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the bsaement." Well, yeah. That's why we buy mobile phones: to use wherever we go. And we'd like steadily improving service. Perhaps the "Can you hear me now? Good!" Verizon commercials give us that expectation that our phones will work everywhere. If you don't want us to think our phones will work everywhere, don't advertise them saying that they will.

Congratulations to the writer of this piece, Todd Wallack, for exposing Seidenberg as a first-rate asshole. I had no idea how predatory their fearless leader is. I never really had any bad feelings toward Verizon until now.

Still in One Piece

It's over. Last Monday I turned in my appellate brief, went to class, and then went to celebrate by watching UNC beat Illinois over a few beers at the Park Bench.

Yesterday, I had my oral argument: 15 minutes of trying to get my point across while judges would interrupt me and ask questions for what they wanted answers (the nerve!) and... I've lived to blog about it! That means that I have officially completed Legal Rhetoric and one of my first year classes. I couldn't be happier. Now I get to focus on one paper, two finals, and planning my summer trip to Europe.

Eric and Debi came to town this past weekend from NY. It was a good time. We drank a lot, ate a lot, saw a lot of cherry blossoms... nothing like a good weekend of excess shared by good friends from out of town! However, one of the unsung highlights had to be receiving a Jews for Jesus pamphlet on The Mall while headed to the National Gallery. John was good enough to write a blog entry about it, where you can check out the pamphlet. John pretty much sums up my thoughts on the issue.