Posted by TDot on Dec 2, 2011 in
Fail LDOC and SBA’s last Presidents’ Roundtable meeting were Wednesday, NCCU Law‘s class-free “Reading Day” was yesterday, and as of today our Fall final exam period has officially started.
So my dishwasher decided to commemorate the event by exploding. 
I’ve got a Tax final due tomorrow at 8am that I really needed to finish this afternoon, so I could study for the Sales & Secured Transactions final happening at 2pm. Instead I got to spend time cleaning up nasty water, airing out the apartment, and trying to convince the dog we weren’t getting bombed by fighter jets.
No clue what prompted the breakdown either because I’m not missing any dishes. Reverse serendipity maybe? 
Tags: #fml, 3L, NCCU Law, Sales, SBA, Tax
Posted by TDot on Nov 20, 2011 in
Fail I’ve already lost my exam number… that I just picked up on Thursday.
And apparently over the past month I completely forgot to notify my grandparents at any time that I’m coming to visit for Thanksgiving in a few days, so now Thanksgiving dinner is being held elsewhere
I swear I’d lose my head if it wasn’t physically attached to my body. I’m ready for this semester to end already!…
Have a great upcoming week y’all, and GOOD LUCK to everyone trying to make it through the end of the semester alongside me! 
Tags: #fml, 3L, ::headdesk::, Nan & Pops
Posted by TDot on Nov 7, 2011 in
Fail I’ve got a Tax assignment due tomorrow morning at 8:00am.
And it won’t be getting done on time, because apparently at some point back around September I was mentally checked out and totally don’t remember anything at all about calculating “adjusted basis” and related stuff
I know it seems like law:/dev/null is becoming one big cautionary tale to the NCCU Law 1Ls/2Ls coming after me, but y’all I’m dead serious: when you go to class, GO TO CLASS.
More to come when I can find some time…
Tags: #fml, 3L, NCCU Law, Tax
Posted by TDot on Oct 11, 2011 in
Fail “The best laid schemes of mice and men,” Robert Burns wrote a couple centuries ago, “go often askew[.]”
That pretty much sums up today
One thing I left out of yesterday’s update on life was that I missed AppAd last Monday to get repairs made to my car, a paid-off-but-aging-rapidly Ford Focus that I’ve driven across the State of North Carolina several times over. My cursed tire was flat again for reasons unknown so I headed in to the repair shop, got the tire fixed (gratis), and decided to get the usual pre-winter maintenance done as well: oil change, tire rotation and alignment, coolant flush, and so on.
Sure it came out to a few hundred dollars, but I thought to msyelf “At least this car won’t need any more maintenance until Spring semester.”
Ha. Hahahaha. Ha.
So today’s Election Day in the Bull City, I leave the apartment a little earlier than usual with the plan to go vote before class… and notice the car feels funny. When you’ve been driving the same vehicle for nearly a decade, you can just tell when something’s wrong. And sure enough when I get to the next stoplight the battery warning light comes on to tell me something’s awry with the electrical system.
Rather than turning right to go to the polls, I turn left to go to the repair shop again. A few minutes after turning my key over to them I learn that the refurb’d alternator I had installed back in 2008 picked today to stop working 
And unlike my old 1987 Mazda pickup truck (the first vehicle I had), today’s cars are manufactured by machines that cram parts so @#$%ing tight that it’s damn near impossible to service yourself and takes repair shops a few hours to fix things too. My Focus is actually intentionally designed so the only way you can really replace the alternator is by machine-lowering the entire engine block a few inches 
So I’m at the mercy of the repair folks, shell out more $$$, and head on my way 3 hours later.
In time to completely miss both Tax and Employment Discrimination, less than 24 hours after promising Prof Tax I’d be in class on-time and caught-up…
Over the past just-over-a-month I’ve now spent in excess of $1500 on auto repairs: getting the cursed tire fixed 3x, replacing some part that holds some other belt in place, last Monday’s maintenance, and then this stuff today. That not only totally wipes out my savings account that barely endured what is already my most expensive semester of all time, it also erases the $700 I had set aside for my NC bar application due January 1st
And just to add insult to injury? I was late getting out of Sales & Secured Transactions tonight so I couldn’t even make it to the polls before they closed, making this the first election I’ve missed since I started voting 12 years ago
Needless to say your friendly neighborhood blawger’s in a bitter @#$%ing mood. Heading to bed with the knowledge tomorrow will inevitably be a better day — have a good night y’all! 
Tags: #fml, 3L, ::headdesk::, AppAd, Employment Discrimination, Money Money Money, Prof Tax, Sales, Tax
Posted by TDot on Sep 1, 2011 in
Fail Alternate title: how I almost created a really expensive paperweight
After 5 years of dependable service, the Airport card in my original edition MacBook Pro finally started to die a couple weeks ago. It was making difficult between my networked laptop backups getting corrupted from the sporadically dropping signal and having absolutely no internet access at all during classes.
Determined to make this laptop last until after I’m licensed next year, I took it into Apple for an official diagnosis that the card was dying (it was) and an estimated on repairs (~$100). The cost wasn’t particularly exorbitant but it would have required me to part with my laptop for 3-5 business days — which simply wasn’t going to happen.
Since my laptop has long been out of warranty — and I’ve already hand-upgraded the RAM, hard drive, and CD drive myself — I bought a replacement on eBay and planned to do the upgrade myself.
I’m at NCCU Law about 45 minutes before Sales starts, which should be plenty of time to get the top case removed, the antennas unhooked, the card swapped out, the circuit board tape replaced, and everything back to together again. Leaning over a table with an ice cube tray beside me for sorting the removed screws, I’ve got everything apart and the card out in 15 minutes and the new card put in.
I go to replace the screw in the retaining bracket that holds the wireless card in place…
…
…
…and my fat fingers knock the @#$%ing thing off the screwdriver 
I shake the circuit board and don’t see anything fall out. I check the table I’m working on and don’t see it. I crawl around on the floor and can’t find it. I get a broom and sweep the entire region, poring over flecks of dirt bigger than the missing screw, all without success.
And did I mention this particular screw for this particular retaining bracket is required to hold the wifi card in place and re-secure the top case?
After successfully burning 30 minutes on an unsuccessful screw-hunting expedition and my “laptop” looking like nothing but a circuit board with a monitor attached, I ask EIC to go tell Prof Sales that I’ll be missing class for the 2nd day in a row.
I then go to the law school’s IT folks and get a magnet-tipped screwdriver and also ask if they’ve got a screw of a comparable size and width. After spending another 30 minutes testing various screws from a bad Lenovo ThinkPad, nothing works and what little hair I have left on my head is falling out from the sheer terror that I’ve just torpedoed my efforts at keeping this laptop through law school.
Finally, in near-total desperation, I take the recommendation of a nearby 2LE who suggests using one of the screws elsewhere on the logic board instead. I promptly unfasten one of the screws holding the CD drive in place (since I use that once every 2-3 months at best) and fasten the wireless card, get the keyboard reattached and the top case back on, press the power button — and everything works 
By the time I’m done, it’s roughly 2 minutes before Sales class ends… whereupon I had to tuck my tail between my legs and go explain to Prof Sales that I had no intention of missing his class.
The upside is that I’m now able to write this entry from the comfort of my bedroom without losing signal for the first time in weeks — but after nearly having a heart attack over a screw comparable in size to a blood clot, I think I’ll stick with law instead of IT 
Have a great night everybody! 
Tags: #fml, EIC, NCCU Law, Prof Sales, Sales, Tech Talk
Posted by TDot on Aug 22, 2011 in
Fail Right as I was about to scrawl down an entry about how excited I was for the first day of 3L year and how awesome today went, life decided to throw some lulz my way
From the “be-happy-with-the-blessings-in-your-life-instead-of-complaining-about-minor-annoyances-on-teh-intarwebz” file, we have this:
This is the kind of sh*t that makes less-mentally-stable people think the CIA is out to get them...
Yes, ladies and gentlemen: that’s a flat tire.
And not just any flat tire, mind you, but the exact same now-flat tire I just fixed barely a month ago
I got my car in 2002, and can recall only 2 flat tires before moving to Durham (and both were the result of the car getting hit).
But since starting at NCCU Law in August 2009, I’ve now had 3 “nailed” tires in 2 years — the first at the intersection a couple blocks from my apartment complex en route to our 1L Mary Wright Closing Argument competition, the second one last month at the intersection at my apartment complex, and now this one earlier tonight in the parking lot at NCCU.
My car evidently thinks nails in the street are a grave safety hazard, and so it’s determined to roll over every single one it can in the name of preserving public health…
At least I’m slowly approaching my lifetime goal of reaching NASCAR-esque speeds in how quickly I can change a flat tire?
Tags: 3L, ::headdesk::, Money Money Money, NCCU Law
Posted by TDot on Jul 17, 2011 in
Fail Hey everybody!
I hope all of you have had an amazing weekend! The crush of work I mentioned in my last entry is finally finished, so I’ve spent the past couple days reflecting on life, relaxing, and now working on a leadership development presentation for my undergraduate colleagues in the N.C. Central University Student Government.
And of course taking a break to throw one of these posts together
It’s no secret that I’m generally not a fan of Contracts (see here and here and here if you don’t know why). The concepts aren’t exactly difficult, I’m just not aware of any field of law where people have gone to greater lengths to defile the meaning of perfectly functional English words.
Not even Capt. Picard approves of these Ks
Now most legal documents seem to have taken the old adage of “Don’t use a 10-cent word when a 5-cent word will do” and replaced it with “Don’t use a 10-cent word when an identical or substantially similar conveyance of meaning is articulable through the concurrent deployment of at least, but not limited to, a half-dozen or more $2 locutions.”
So this entry is dedicated to those documents and to the lawyers billing by the word who wrote them.
I’ve picked a quartet of clauses from actual contracts that have crossed my desk over the past few months for your reading pleasure, and underlined the language that irks me…
Honorable Mention:
This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of [RandomState], without reference to its conflict of laws principles.
Now I realize that this underlined snippet is actually designed to serve a purpose. Those of you who paid attention in CivPro might recognize this entire clause as a “choice of law” provision, indicating which state’s laws the parties want to use in enforcing the contract. And some of those states have enacted statutes — their “conflict of laws principles” — that say if a cause of action arises in another state, that other state’s laws should govern the conflict.
So, hypothetically, if a contract between a buyer in North Carolina and a seller in Virginia is construed under North Carolina law, but something happens in Virginia such that the seller defaults and the buyer files suit, a judge interpreting the contract might say “Construing this contract under North Carolina law, since this default happened in Virginia and North Carolina’s conflict of laws provisions say a contract must be governed by the law of the state giving rise to the cause of action, the Virginia law applies to this suit.” The underlined text would, theoretically at least, prevent that from happening.
[Note that I don't actually know if what would actually happen in that particular hypothetical, I'm just trying to come up with a rational explanation for the underlined verbiage ]
Then why, assuming this language really does serve a purpose, did it get included in my list?
Because one of the cardinal principles of contract interpretation is construing the contract in a way that effects the intent of the parties. It’s evident from including a choice of law provision in the first place that the parties wanted it governed by the law of the chosen state. For either party to then use the chosen state’s conflict of laws principles to wedge their way under the aegis of a different state’s laws would seem (to my feeble mind at least) to frustrate the signatories’ intent.
***
Third Place:
Notwithstanding any provision of this Agreement to the contrary, if any confidential information is required to be disclosed pursuant to an order of a governmental agency or by operation of law, the receiving party shall be permitted to disclose such confidential information in accordance with the order or law. Prior to the disclosure the receiving party shall, unless prohibited by law, give the disclosing party reasonable advance notice to contest the disclosure.
Is there any kind of notice “[p]rior to the disclosure” that would not be “advance notice”?
Is there any kind of “advance notice” to contest a disclosure that could happen after “[p]rior to the disclosure”?
Unless the meaning of those basic words has changed since I last took an English class, the answer to both questions is “no.” The redundancy is unnecessary surplusage.
***
Second Place:
In the event of a breach of this Agreement, [OurCo] may demand from [YourCo] the sum of One-Hundred Thousand U.S. Dollars ($100,000.00) as liquidated damages and as reimbursement for expenses incurred and estimated to be incurred by [OurCo], which [YourCo] agrees to pay to [OurCo] within five (5) business days of the demand by [OurCo].
This one evidently originated in the Legal Department of a company that really likes seeing its name in print
This type of “break fee” provision is common in many contracts, designed to incentivize a party to avoid breaching the agreement. It’s obvious from the first sentence that the ability to demand payment in this clause belongs to OurCo, so the recitation of the rationale (“reimbursement for expenses…” blah blah blah) doesn’t need the “by OurCo” reference. Neither does the last line, since nothing in this clause gives YourCo the ability to make such a demand; we’re only talking about OurCo’s demand here.
And if OurCo is making the demand, why require in the contract that YourCo must “pay [it] to OurCo”? Maybe OurCo’s finance guys want YourCo to pay the money to some random charity so it’s not reflected as income on OurCo’s balance sheet.
Lots of redundancy all around… ::smh::
***
Before getting into our First Place winner, I have to confess up front that I bear some responsibility for any continued longevity this provision now has — I alphabetized the original and removed some of its duplicate listings.
First Place:
“Document” means a physical embodiment of information or ideas of any kind or nature, including items that are handwritten, printed, mimeographed, lithographed, duplicated, typed, or contained in a graphic, photographic, film, video, tape or other electronic recording. Examples of documents include, but are not limited to: accounts, affidavits, analyses, answers to questionnaires, appointment books, balance sheets, bills, blueprints, book entries, books, cables, calculations, catalogs, charts, checks, computer files, computer logs, computer printouts, computer programs, contracts, correspondence, data, deeds, deposit slips, desk calendars, diagrams, diaries, drafts, drawings, emails, evaluations, expense reports, films, forms, formulas, graphs, income and/or investment statements, indexes, instructions, invoices, journals, ledgers, letters, license agreements, lists, logs, magnetic tapes and cards, manuals, maps, memoranda, microfilms, minutes, money orders, newspaper articles or clippings, notations, notes, offers, opinions, pamphlets, papers, periodicals, photographs, plans, publications, punch cards, purchase orders, questionnaires, receipts, records, renderings, reports, schedules, sheets, specifications, statements, statistical records, studies, summaries, surveys, tabulations, tax returns, telegrams, telex messages, text messages of any kind (including AIM, ICQ, MMS and SMS), transcripts, vouchers, warranties, web pages, websites, work papers, and worksheets. Documents also include, but are not limited to, reports and recordings of (i) telephone or other conversations, (ii) interviews or personal conversations, (iii) conferences, or (iv) committee meetings or other meetings, in addition to all other records or information kept by electronic, photographic, mechanical or other means, and things similar to any of the foregoing, however denominated.
This one actually takes up an entire page once it’s put in 12pt Times New Roman and doubled-spaced
For comparison, Black’s Law Dictionary defines a “document” as “Something tangible on which words, symbols, or marks are recorded.”
And Merriam-Webster’s goes with “a piece of written, printed, or electronic matter that provides information or evidence or that serves as an official record.”
Neither apparently feels it necessary to provide a page’s worth of examples.
—===—
Have a good night y’all!
Tags: 3L, ::facepalm::, CivPro, 雅雅, Ks, SG, Son of TDot
Posted by TDot on May 4, 2011 in
Fail …if you’re going to write down the wrong time for your last 2L final exam, at least make sure the time that you write down is before the actual exam time and not after it.
That is all.
Tags: #fml, 2L, ::headdesk::, CrimPro
Posted by TDot on Apr 15, 2011 in
Fail Hey everybody
I just realized it’s been a week now since I posted that I’d be trying to catch up on old law:/dev/null entries “in the coming day or two”. And in the 7 days since then I’ve only managed to get two of those entries posted, one on my summer school schedule and the other on my 3L Fall schedule
As you can probably guess, I completely overestimated the degree of “done”-ness of my semester. On the academic side of things, even with liberally skipping my Business Associations and Criminal Procedure classes to catch up elsewhere, my Fridays have been eaten up with trials for Trial Practice and my paper for Scientific Evidence has turned out to be a bigger deal than I originally thought.
Outside of that, on a personal note the issues with my family have flared up again, and one of my (formerly close) “friends” has essentially decided I’m not worth the time of day now that she no longer needs me around for moral support. And of course the state budget is shaping up to be a disaster for the UNC system and UNCASG continues to be MIA, so I’ve been diving in to start some advocacy work from my vantage point here within the law school.
One day I’ll get back to updating the blog regularly. Seriously. Until then I’d recommend using our RSS feed so you can get updated whenever new entries get posted instead of waiting for me to get my life together
Thanks for still reading, and have a great weekend!
Tags: 2L, 3L, BALaw, CrimPro, SBA, Scientific Evidence, Trial Practice, UNCASG
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