Tuesday, July 24, 2007

C-Snoring

I went to go hear testimony before a subcommittee at the House offices today. If you have ever flipped to C-Span while fervently searching for scrambled porn (does that still exist?) you were likely bored by the droll monotone that was elucidated by all uninterested parties. I hit the channel up button when I get to C-Span too. It really is "sooooooo boooooooooooooring." The only two times I ever watched C-Span for more than thirty seconds in my life was for Roberts' and Alito's confirmation hearings. And really only because I was about to be or in Law School when they went down, so I figured I had some sort of CLE obligation to watch it.

But the live show of congressional hearings, is well, one word sums it up: "Damn."

Actually, it needs a couple more words: "Damn, this is so fucking boring."

If you survived my rambling post from last night, you know I was dead tired today. Hearing people talk about boring ass shit did not help. Sure it only lasted 105 minutes; wait only? I think I fell asleep for a couple minutes in the first half hour. So the point is, Seeing the shit they show on C-Span live, not really worth it.

However, in my case, once I got my little nap in, I was able to focus enough to pay attention and be interested in seeing Government in Action. My favorite part was when a Rep. would ask some probing questions, and then when his or her time was up, state, "For the record, I want to make clear I do not support [people breaking the fucking law]."

It was an hour and forty-five minutes of complete unadulterated politicking.

And I do not just mean by the Reps. Of the witnesses, three were government officials and two were "CEOs" of some type of organizations, but I will refer to them as Lobbyists because that is what they were. Hell, one of the witnesses was a forming member of the damn subcommittee. The government officials gave straight forward, non-bull shit answers, while the lobbyists seemed to enjoy waxing poetic on off-topic social ills.

If this sort of thing is news to you, I am sorry. It just made me feel like giving myself papercuts on my eyes when it was all over.

So, to make this not a completely worthless post, on a completely unrelated note; this guy is my new hero.

Monday, July 23, 2007

something?

I have been going non-stop since Wednesday. I am so tired, the only reason I am typing is because I have an unopened beer in front of me. I refuse to let it go to waste.

Last wednesday was a softball game. Lots of drinking was involved. This was exacerbated by the fact that the team we played was full of dicks. See, I play in the House Softball league. Implicit in that should be a sense of morality. Mainly because we have no umps, the team at bat puts out third and first base coaches who act as umpires for close plays or foul balls. In the first inning they gave themselves two calls, which I could tell from right center were clearly wrong. This helped them wrack up eight runs in the first inning, and when we went down in order in teh bottom of the first, it was clearly realized that they were the better team. The whole thing reeked of them being unsure of our abilities, so they tried to give themselves every advantage. I am not sure if they actually worked for a House Rep. but rest assured he is not getting my vote.

Anyway, we got demolished that game. It was humbling really (granted we were missing our two best players and I was unable to perform my usual pregame ritual of a pitcher of beer plus one with another player on the team), and even though I flat out sucked, it did not make a difference. Sure, they injured two of our pitchers with shots back up the middle, both of whom had to sit out the rest of the game and drink beer while watching, but it left us a player short. And to be fair, we were screwed going in, they just screwed us more. So after the game we enetered a new post-shellacking ritual; getting more hammered. This was a great idea to me. I love drinking. Unfortunately, I had to drive to the game, so I was faced with the choice of getting home safely or getting more to drink.

There were other things at play. My sister was flying into town that night. She had a flight cancelled then another delayed. I had no clue when she was getting in. I figured that since the bar was closer to the airport than my house, she should meet me there. So it was on. After all, she could always drive me home.

So the beer had two dollar drafts, drinking ensued, good times were had by all (it was a pretty good bar, up near the top of my list). My sister showed and she started drinking (spending 8 hours in an airport to make a 45 minute flight does that to you). And when all was said and done, I had to drive home. Granted, I was not smashed. I probably would have been legal to drive in some states. I am not sure what the deal is in DC with the blood alcohol percentage. But I had to work the next day, so I had to get my car home (completely logical at the time). It was an uneventful drive, except for one highlight. I pulled up behind a cop car at a stoplight. There was a car next to the cop in the lane to the right. With the light red, the other car just decided to go. Through the red light. If I knew who that moron was, I would send a gift basket for allowing me to not have to worry about that cop.

So my sister and I got home and talked all sorts of family matters until 2 am when I decreed that I had to sleep. With no open beds in my house, I gave her mine and took the couch. I somehow woke up on time after 4 hours of sleep and made it to work on time.

On Thursday another 3/6ths of my family flew into town. This night was not as exciting, but it involved me being dead tired and nine o'clock reservations at a great restaurant. I drank more, got to bed at one.

Friday was more of the same. Except that I had a Bar-B-Q for my folks and sisters at my house because they all wanted to see it. This involved more copious amounts of drinking. Especially considering I had four beers in the 45 minutes between the time I got home and my parents showed up. I had to prepare myself you know. Loosen up a bit. Or whatever. So Friday was just another night of a lot of drinking.

Usually I catch up on sleep on the weekends. It is not unusual for me to sleep until 1. Not this weekend. Had to get my still-drunk ass out of bed early to drive down to Charlottesville VA for a wedding. Which should have been no problem, expect that I-95 is the fifth circle of hell. Nothing like taking three hours to go 26 miles. DC Metro area, got to love it.

Wedding=Lots o' Drinking. It is a rule or something. The 13th Commandment I think. My best friend from the time you can actually have a best friend as a young person until I was about 10 was getting married. I pretty much completely lost touch with her over the years, but I still her sporadically every four or five years. It has always been a little awkward for me because I am pretty awkward. But this was great. Maybe because I realized I would never be with her, not that it was ever a possibility or what I wanted, but still, she was the first best friend I ever had, and nothing can ever get in the way of that (she was a tomboy, we used to play tackle football. It was awesome, before I realized just how awesome playing tackle football with a chick was). So I drank at the wedding, and did a lot of white-guy dancing, though I don't think I have ever been to a wedding where there was not one single women within the relative age bracket of the nuptial couple. That may have been the reason I danced. But at least I was not so drunk that I did not get a dance with the Bride towards the end of the night. All in all, it was nice, a little sad, but very merry.

But a goodnight begets a bad morning. I was not too hung over thanks to the fine pillows at Fairfield Inn (like sleeping, err, passing out on a cloud). My little sis (she is 20) and I drove back to DC in my car, and along the way we saw signs for Montpelier, the home of James Madison. We stopped, and it was awesome. I am too tired to type up the details, but they are in the process of restoring his home, so the entire thing was a construction zone. Which is much cooler than you think. They are restoring the home using the house building methods of the early 1800s. Seeing it in action was pretty cool. Plus the estate is fucking huge, and has the most beautiful view. I have not seen Monticello or Mount Vernon, and I can assume that they are similar, though fully restored. Thus I recommend checking out Madison's house in the next year or so before they finish. My lil sis and I have already decided that we are going back to Montpelier in 2009 when it is finished and spending an entire day there in order to take in everything. I suppose that means I should not bother going to Monticello or Mount Vernon unless I have a day to spend there also, but I am thinking that is not such a bad idea.

After a day of driving, I went out with my folks for more beers and eventually got home around 9. Sadly, I had no clean clothes for today, so I had to do laundry when I got home, and had to force myself to stay awake until the washing machine ran its course and I could stuff my pants in the dryer.

I was dead tired at work. Thankfully, I really had nothing to do except think. So I did the only thing that can expand my mind at work, surfed the web. That lead me to a couple of breakthroughs on a project. But then, one of my nine bosses came in to talk about a memo I wrote. I think he just wanted to see if I could bring the goods, so he had me send him a copy of the memo I was working on. I rewarded him with 10,000 words of IRAC goodness. So when he called me into his office to talk about my memo, he had not even read the damn thing. Which would be fine, except he prefaced his comments by stating that he learned a lot from my memo because he has not worked on this type of problem before (the memo is for a different attorney, he just wanted to take a look). So we get to talking, and he begins discussing something that seems sort of trivial to me, but is important in the grand scheme. In fact, it was something that I paid no attention to because it was a first draft. He was asking about if I properly framed the issue for my memo. I did not even know what the fuck I wrote for the issue, or even when I wrote it. It could have been first or last, I had no clue. Anyway, I am not going to bitch, I just want to say that critical thinking and verbal defense (I had to defend what I wrote, mostly because I am still unclear on the point he was trying to make after he explained it three times, but it is not a memo for him anyway), is not something I am skilled at when extremely tired.

Parents are still in town tonight. Guess what we did? Went out to eat and drank more beers. Then went to a bar and drank some beers. I eventually peeled away around 8:30 because I thought I had to do more laundry tonight. I did not, so I drank more.

Really, the only reason I am still up is because I have nothing to do tomorrow. Tomorrow is field trip day, and all I have to do is wear a suit and look pretty. I am confident in my ability to the former, now that I know I have clean enough clothes.

So whats the point? Hardcore drinking five days in a row without much sleep is getting the best of me. I think I will go to sleep at 7 pm tomorrow. It shall be glorious.

At least until I wake up at 11 unable to fall back asleep. But I will cross that bridge when I get to it.