my new game for the semester

See how many times my Advanced Contracts professor says "discharge a duty" before I burst out laughing. I'm currently at a gentleman's three. Seriously, I think it's his favorite phrase. And now it's mine.

they casted who?

You mean the Janeane Garofalo? Didn't see that one coming. Whatever. It's still 24 and I'm going to watch out of sheer loyalty. Unless they off Chloe. That would be a deal breaker.

In other news...

The trailer for the Elizabeth sequel looks pretty cool, if probably wildly inaccurate. Did Elizabeth I really get all armored up and ride around on a white horse during the prep rally for the big game against the Armada de Espana? Ah, who cares - Clive Owen plays North Carolina's capital.

I've got 75 more bucks to raise before I can get an X-Box 360 and destroy my law school GPA. Hey, Halo 3 is Halo 3.

The online Deacon Shop has been completely revamped and it looks great. They even have Wake Forest scrubs. I could wear it for the series finale of "Scrubs" in the spring while I shed massive tears for the end of my favorite sitcom. (Edit: No sooner do I tout the new online shop than it seems to have stopped working. D'oh.)

Back to the books...

and now i've lived with a murderer

The first of my record-tying six summer school sessions started in May of 2003. I lived in one of the of six-person suites in Kitchin. A guy named David Wells and me had the singles, and the two doubles belonged to Ryan Plackemeier, some offensive lineman whose name escapes me, Napoleon Sykes, and Cornelius Birgs. The last of which killed a guy early Tuesday morning.

Athletes getting in trouble is unheard of at Wake, but it appears this has more to do with a mental illness gone way bad than your run-of-the-mill trouble makers.

Suffice it to say, it's a wee unsettling when an ex-suite mate commits homicide. Yeah.

Cookout Evolves

you may want to sit down for this. i went to the mall in Hendersonville yesterday, and on the way back i saw -- are you sitting yet? -- a Cookout with indoor seating! INDOOR SEATING! Like, y'know, a regular fast food place! This is either the greatest thing ever or the worst thing ever. I mean, it's nice to have more options when it comes to the best fast food on the planet, but being drive-up-only is part of what makes Cookout... Cookout.

i'm confused. what do you think?

yabba-dabba-dino

I had little doubt that Dino Gaudio was the best choice for WF's new basketball coach, and Ron Wellman giving him a 5-year contract confirms as much. The idea of going after a big name is sexy, but ultimately impractical this time of the year. Recruiting has just wrapped and the first official practice is around the corner, so coaches are not looking for new jobs. Hiring an outsider would also potentially mess with the still-strong vibes of the Prosser Era and his staff.

Most importantly (to me), Dino's our best shot a keeping AT&T, the second best recruiting class in the nation for 2008. Ty Walker's myspace lists Dino as one of his heroes, and Aminu is a big fan of assistant coach Pat Kelsey. By keeping the Prosser staff together, we should be able to keep AT&T together, which is so critical to the Wake program that I'm scared of even mentioning it.

Even if you disgaree with Wellman's choice, Dino's the man now and he should have the full support of all Deacons. He will definitely have mine.

hello-o-o...

Hey remember when I posted here? I don't want this blog to die, not just yet, so I'm going to try and revive it.

In rough reverse chronological order...

I finally "moved in" to my new HP laptop. That "cancel or allow" parody commercial of Vista is frighteningly true. I had to turn that security stuff off. Unbelievably annoying.

I was rejected by Elon, but I still managed to get away from Delaware by getting an place in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. It's a cozy 590 square feet studio in a new apartment complex that's only about a mile from Widener, despite a state border in between. Plus I'm in apartment 311. How cool is that.

I saw Transformers in Mooresville and The Simpsons movie in W-S on the same day. That was a great day in movie history.

I'm really glad I took last weekend to pay respect to Skip by going to his viewing and watching the funeral mass in Wait Chapel. The latter was especially moving, and I left filled with sadness at Skip's passing but also a great amount of Wake Forest pride. Father Jude, Coach Dino, Chris Paul, President O. Hatch and Ron Wellman spoke; all demonstrated the strength of the Wake Forest family and how Skip was an irreplaceable part of it. For me, I'll remember Skip as the man who rallied the students around the team and revolutionized the persona of Wake Forest basketball.

London was amazing, except for the last week when I had to deal with exams, a bad case of home sick blues, and learning about Skip. Three weeks before the program started I did a number of tours around the UK and France. I went to Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, a River Thames cruise, Stratford-upon-Avon, Edinburgh, Whales, Paris for a day, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, the white cliffs of Dover, and others I can't even remember.

Once the program started, I visited the London Eye, Imperial War Museum, the Churchill War Cabinets, the crosswalk at Abbey Road, Wimbledon for some tennis, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, a comedy club and dance club somewhere outside of London (I never did know where - that was a weird night), the Natural History Museum, and saw Wicked and Spam-a-lot. I also finally had a shrimp pizza.

Our dorm was overrun by French teenagers. They seemed to move in packs of 20 - clogging the hallways and entrances. They were also all chain smokers. God, they were annoying.

Biggest negative - the food. Unbelievably expensive, and anything with beef tasted like crap. Eating nothing but cold sandwiches and fried food gets old after a while.

That's it for now. I'll try and post more, promise.