damn the muse

Surprise, surprise or maybe not. We knew filesharing wasn't such bad news. A new study reports that sharing between users has little to negative impact on cd sales. It would have to take about 5000 downloads to affect the sale of one cd, which equals a lot of downloads when you think about it.

Face it, music these days, especially mainstream, is just plain bad. The RIAA just doesn't listen. Filesharing on the otherhand is great. Afterall, I always thought it was a great way to discover new music and sample new albums before making the mistake of buying that cd with only one worthwhile song.

Posted by yasmín at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

True or False? Roosevelt County in Oregon has decided to stop issuing heterosexual marriage licenses until further notice. Their reasoning? They need to give the minority an opportunity to catch up!

I think it's brilliant and hilarious. Picture the conservative townspeoples' faces for a second, and bright red as a tomato doesn't even cover the description. There could be purple, and clenching fists, and heart attacks, if it were true.

See, the only downside to this story is that there's no citation, no proof. It's entertaining nonetheless.

Thank you Jack!

Posted by yasmín at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Findlaw had these wonderful articles that I wanted to comment on, and I'd like to say I was going to but my dog kept me from blogging. He sat on my lap and slobbered on me. Except I have no dog.

Actually I have something worse: the blue screen of death. I can be surfing away minding my own business, and suddenly it will hit without any warning. God forbid I be working on a layout. Then I'll really lose my hair. At least Word has an automatic save function.

The diagnosis is grim. I felt it in my gut, but the Best Buy tech confirmed it as he also gave me the bad news about having to confiscate my laptop for two to three weeks if I wanted a working A drive. I have a bad error. A really bad error. No duh Sherlock, I could have told you that.

A reformat is in order, and no I didn't give them my laptop. Not without backing up my information, which has entirely too much anime on the system. I just can't delete it! That and there's the whole thing with my writings, which are incredibly important. But the anime!

In all sincerity, how do I accumulate such junk. I'm like a bag lady on acid, and it's mildly amusing.

Posted by yasmín at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For some reason lists make me feel important and productive, so I'm making a new one. That and they're actually kind of fun. In reality, I'm just finding something different to stress about other than the fact that April is almost here, and after that May, and that means bar results. This all equals horrible amounts of anxiety. It's too early to start stressing about that, so I'd rather stress about something else.

- Find a job (volunteer basis, wouldn't mind clerking though I would love to get some litigation experience in. Have I mentioned, love.)

- I owe Katie something creative today. It may just happen since I'm all about angst. It has to be based on a song. I just don't know if it will be a poem or a short piece.

- The domain. Poor domain. It desperatly needs a face lift. I want to finish editing the pages first, and then I'll think about a new layout. I think the forum will be making a reappearance this week. I just need to organize the files.

- My personal site is my absolute priority along with this blog which needs a face lift. I've been playing with a few of MT's features, and rumor has it that version 3 will be out fairly soon. That will be cool. But what good is a blog if no one knows the person behind it? I miss my site. It was also quite extensive, which is probably why I've probably ignored it. I can't anymore. That and my AMC pages used to receive tons of hits. I have to get it up again.

Posted by yasmín at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Admittedly, there is a need to stop frivolous lawsuits especially in cases where parents are blaming McDonalds instead of themselves for their child's sudden increase in weight. Now comes a report from the Bush Administration claiming that these frivolous lawsuits were one of the reasons behind our current unemployment crisis.

"Lawsuit abuse is the ultimate disincentive for hiring new people," Snow said in prepared remarks to a closed session of the American Tort Reform Association. "The cost of doing business is substantially increased by a litigious environment."

Fact: A minority of lawsuits are frivolous, and the lawyers who bring such lawsuits are subject to discipline under the code.

Fact: Without the lawsuits there is one less avenue for regulation. Have we forgotten Enron so quickly.

If the government wants to protect small business then let it protect small business, but not at the detriment of the consumer. They have the right to sue. As for blaming the lawyers for the lack of jobs, well this is the same Bush Administration that claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq so what else is new.

Posted by yasmín at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I meant to announce this yesterday, but I was too busy being social or at least pretending to be.

The fellows formally from En Banc have a new weblog, De Novo, and it's fabulous. The symposium, which is the new addition to blog, is an excellant idea, and I might even submit to it if the topic seems right.

This weeks first symposium in particular has had me thinking about how well I'm prepared for "the outside." Coming from a law school that was so dedicated to bar classes and less on clinics and hands on experience other than the summer clerkships (because quite frankly employment during the semester was discouraged), the minute I get my license I won't know what to do with it. I do have clerkship experience and I'm happy that I took trial advocacy, and I was an avid competitor in mock trial, but it isn't real world.

Granted, I'm not paranoid about it because I learned quite a bit as a clerk, and after all these months of being unemployed studying for the exam I'm just dying to jump in and get my hands dirty in some kind of civil work, but I don't want to be blindsighted by it.

That and I did not go to the best school, but that's not a secret.

Posted by yasmín at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A French court has ruled in favor of Disney and Pixar stating that they did not "Find Nemo" from author Franck le Calvez. He sued last year claiming that Nemo was too similar to his character, Pierrot, who also happens to be a clown fish that gets lost. The difference here is that Pierrot has a dolphinlike smile, therefore he cannot be like the adorable Nemo.

Posted by yasmín at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

These are the things I've discovered today:

- Wonderfalls made me laugh out loud, not once, not twice, but countless times. It definately deserves a second chance.

- I've discovered Blue October thanks to my roommate. My playlist is all the richer because of this, and this makes me happy.

- I will own the MPRE tomorrow. Ahem.

- When I post this I will have more posts than comments. I guess I've really bored people. But please, no spammers!

Posted by yasmín at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Oh look, I wrote a poem. The only catch is that it's in Spanish. I know, it's not fair. What was I thinking hiding my crappiness behind my native tongue. Actually, because the subject is someone dear to my heart who happens to be on my Mexican side, the words just came out better in español.

Bailarina

Eres la bailarina de mis sueños
tu vestido es un azúl obscuro
pero tu sonrisa te hace lucir
mas que los ángeles que buscas
mas que la madre que extrañas.

Tus manos son pálidas como la luna,
tu cabello largo es como el marisól,
y cada cosa de ti es un recuerdo
aunque esos recuerdos son menos
aunque van deslisándose con el sol.

Pero sigues siendo mi dulce bailarina
Mi eterna amiga y eterna hermana
Protectora de sueños a la medianoche
siempre a mi lado sin poder verte
siempre separadas por un océano azúl

Posted by yasmín at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNN is just reporting that the California Supreme Court has issued a halt to same-sex marriage licenses in San Fransisco.

So there it is, a judicial order keeping two people from their fundamental right to marry. I don't care that they are both female or male. They should have that right to marry, and the fact that other people want to prevent that makes them so cold-hearted and prejudical it's sickening.

Posted by yasmín at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Picture this. It's early evening and you're driving home after a long day at the job. The road is mostly empty except for the SUV ahead, which you disregard because Tori is on the radio and you're jamming along to Precious Things. Suddenly, the song is over, the announcer is describing the previously listened to songs and you're head to head with SUV. You absently glance next to you to see the driver. Afterall, he could be a hotty, and lo and be hold he is, except he's engrossed in a 10 x 10 screen latched ten inches from his windshield. His buddy in the companion seat is fixiated on the same thing, a naked gay couple doing a 69. It's a wonder they haven't crashed the SUV into another car.

What was once considered the road trip solution for little kids is now being used to fulfill sexual fantasies, except that cars were meant to be driven people, not drive and orgasm at the same time. Seriously, what were they thinking.

Posted by yasmín at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I am such a spoiler whore!!!!! I couldn't even handle three miserable hours. After the third I clicked on the link. Damn my curiousity. I'm going to hell.

Oh Jonni and Steph, I dare you to look. ::smiles evily::

Posted by yasmín at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

These days if a movie has a little nudity it's enough to give it an R rating where as twenty years ago it was an easy PG or maybe PG-13. Now there's this recommendation to give movies an R rating if the actors smoke. The reasoning? To shield children and adolescents from the dangers of smoking. Let's not give them the temptation to light up and poison their lungs.

Note to the group: Limiting the sex to R rated films has not stopped teen pregnancies. STD cases are on the rise, and they don't show signs of stopping.

Second, should we ban violence too. Especially the shoot-em-up flicks, the Vin Diesel's and the Rock fight films. Look at MTV's JackAss. Teenagers did try to mimic some of the stunts on that show.

The fact of the matter is, teenagers are mindless fools who can't think for themselves, but suggesting that censorship or barring certain images won't solve the problem. It hasn't yet.

And please, don't give the MPAA anymore ideas. Their guidelines are screwy as is.

Link via A Small Victory

Posted by yasmín at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My lovely domain is back up, though it is missing a few things. There is no forum or link database. A few hostees are missing as well as the guestbook and the mailing list.

The shell is there. This is what matters. I'm high on migraine drugs. I'm a happy camper. We can all be happy together!

The webmistress is in no way, shape, or form responsible for any psychological damage you receive by reading the materials on this website.

Posted by yasmín at 2:49 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

My scheduled migraine wants to rear its ugly head. The obvious solution to this is to take a zomig except I'm not symptomatic. I get the tension first, then the tension headache, and then the migraine from hell. Except they're all from hell, or something like that. I have a concert to sing at today. I have the same one tomorrow. I have to be around smokers on Monday. The migraine is banished till Tuesday, ya hear!

Of course, since when does it listen to me.

I have this need to make a list. Things to do, people to do, places to go, etc, etc. I have a semi-functional control panel but this only impairs me counter wise. Everything else is alright. Have I mentioned how annoying it is not being able to say that 78,000 have visited blackglass since August 8, 1999 but I'm cool. I could just put it in the text and then aggregate the amount later. Hmm...

Anyway, these are my goals for March:

- study every day this week for the MPRE
- email the hostees today
- put the domain back up
- install a form script
- install dada mail (formally mojomail mailing list). Now this would be an interesting case if the guy had enough funds to sue. He started the script years ago but some upstart company filed a trademark using the name Mojo a year or so ago and then threatened to sue him if he didn't change the name of his script. He would have a case I think, but again it's a situation where it's the little guy against the big guy, and I'm not familiar with trademark law. It's still infuriating to know.
- new layout for blog
- put my personal website back online
- go see A Perfect Circle (yay)
- write!

If I can do all of this in a month then I will consider myself accomplished.

Posted by yasmín at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Procrastination still has meaning in my life. I'm still eyeing another ugly one next week, which frankly isn't a big deal. Really, not in the least. The challenge now is putting the pieces back together and trying not to fall apart in the weeks ahead.

There's so much to do, and these days I've enjoyed doing absolutely nothing except bemoan the slow demise of Angel. I was forced to lie down on the couch for an entire day thanks in part to a debilitating migraine, so in that time I was reintroduced to Mal and Zoe and the misfit crew of Serenity. Yes, as fate would have it, a day or so afterwards it was announced that there would be a Firefly movie. It still won't make up for the fact that next fall will be the first time in eight years without a Joss Whedon show, without a well written show that does not treat its audience like idiots.

I did not intend this to be a rant, honest. I just want to recap a few things, but I suppose since I feel cheated by the WB and every other tv network lately, what can you expect. Remember Karen Sisco or Miracles.

I will be watching Wonderfalls since it promises to be smart and funny and tragic. After all, its by Tim Minnear. I won't be watching any more shows by the WB. Dark Shadows is not Angel and quite frankly I'm not interested in watching a stupid soap opera about vampires.

Posted by yasmín at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by yasmín at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)