Saturday, December 13, 2008

Quiet! I can't hear the voices in my head!

It's weird to live in a townhouse where you pay rent so you feel like all your neighbors do too...until they start doing some random remodeling next door so the sound of drills and hammers interrupt your Christmas music. Because you just pay the owner of your one unit, so of course some people might just live in the place they own rather than rent it out. So of course they're allowed to do remodeling.

I was going to run some errands tomorrow, since it's only 28 degrees out right now and tomorrow it's supposed to be closer to 40. But I might need to escape the noise. *shrug* I have more time today anyway...maybe I should. I can enjoy my Christmas music on my iPod instead.

Speaking of which, yes, I still love my new toys. =) Jenn, in response to your question, the iPhone is fantastic. You asked about the Touch, which is different since it's not a phone and therefore isn't hooked up to the 3G network. But any of the applications you can get for the iPhone that don't require an internet connection work on the Touch, and they're a lot of fun. Lots of random games and stuff. And TONS of free applications. I'm actually kind of surprised at how many are free. And many others are only 99 cents. Anyway, if you were talking about upgrading your phone, you definitely should, and if you were talking about just upgrading to the iPod Touch, well, you should do that too. You'll love it, I promise. =)

As for my iPod...I am absolutely amazed at how long the battery lasts. I haven't charged it since I bought it on Sunday, I've listened to it on my way to and from work every day, and it's still about 1/2 full. Not only have I listened to it on my way to and from work, I've also listened to it a bit at home while cooking or cleaning. I would have charged that Zen twice by now.

Oh, and the new iPods (or at least the Nano) have this "genius" playlist thing. You select a song in your music, and tell genius to start, and it creates a playlist to match the song you selected. And it really does deserve the term "genius;" it is the smartest playlist creator I've ever seen. I've only created two lists so far, but all the songs that come up match the selected song REALLY well. The last one I did, I swear it didn't only match the artists, but also the overall tone of the song itself. So, when it was kind of a low-key song, it picked a bunch of other low-key tracks, rather than just going by artists that would match if it had just picked the right song. It's amazing.

Anywho, enough about my new toys. Work was exciting this week. I had a nice breakthrough in looking through some audit files (the collection of documents and charts and whatnot the auditors used in making their determination) on this one case. I'm starting to figure out what happened. Which is great, because it's a really complicated case. We need to do discovery (which, for you non-law people, means we need to get documents and stuff from the other party) but to do that we need to know what evidence will help us prove our case, so we need to know what's going on and what evidence we already have from the auditors. We also need to dismiss part of their claim, and I get to work on the motion to dismiss. That excites me to no end. All this background stuff like dismissals and settlements is the heart of civil litigation, very few cases actually end up at trial, so having the chance to work on this stuff makes me happy. And with how happy it makes me, that just validates the fact that I really, really do want to do civil litigation when I'm out of school.

Anyway, my other case has been in settlement negotiations on all but one of the issues, and they're just about to come to an agreement, when that happens I'll be writing up the settlement memo, which is basically the memo we send up to the big cheeses at the DOR to explain why we think we should settle on those issues and how much we're settling for and stuff.

AAAAAAND, that's as far as I can go in talking about work. But as you can see I was very careful to not mention the names of the companies.

Let's see, what else...oh, since I don't have any homework for the next few months, I'm starting to brush up on my French in anticipation of my graduation trip. Yes, it is brushing up. There was a time in my life when I was JUST on the edge of fluency...but then I stopped taking it because I went to college and it wasn't my major or my minor so I just took one semester to meet the foreign language requirement...then I graduated college...now I'm in law school...anyway, it's been a long time since I actively worked on it, so I've lost a lot of what I used to know. I'm still pretty far beyond basic, but I'd prefer to be able to get along in Paris without needing to say "puis-je parler en anglais, s'il vous plaƮt?" (may I speak in English, please?) too often. Anyway, I found a podcast that got some good reviews, one of the reviews said it's not very good for "beginner-beginners" so I figured that means it won't annoy me by being overly basic. I've listened to the first two, both had at least one useful tip that I either forgot or never knew, so I'm happy with that. I also found an interesting website with some free worksheets to work on verb conjucation and stuff.

Well, I guess I should get to my errands. Until next time!

**Update: 9:15 pm, EST**

Home from my errands. Christmas shopping is almost done. I am done going to any mall-type places. Although I do still need to go to Target...that might be worse than the mall. But I have this great idea for Chris and Amanda and Target is really the best place to go. Anywho, my mom is done, as is Vanessa, and Megan, Christen and my dad are all online.

Anyway, the best part of the errands: I finally bought myself a new bed! Which I was supposed to do when I moved in September but it just wasn't quite going to happen. Got it at a HUGE sale at Sleep-a-rama (I think they're a Boston business, their website only has Boston and Cambridge locations). They have great customer service, by the way. Anywho, so I go in and I tell the guy that I'm looking for a queen size and I'd like to only spend $700, for delivery and all. He told me they had some specials going on, showed me what I could get for that, then left me alone to lay on all the beds until I decided. I figured the one I almost fell asleep on right there in the store was the one for me. So I'm checking out and the guy showed what the price was normally without the sale - $1200! So basically I just got a great mattress. Finally! I've never had a great mattress like that. Anyway, it's a plush top so it has the support underneath but the squishiness on the top so when I lay on my side (which is how I usually sleep) I won't scrunch my shoulders. And it's one of those with the separate springs that you see the commercials for, with the bowling ball. Beautyrest, I think. I didn't pay as much attention to the details, I just knew that I was falling asleep in the store. =)

So, that's my update on my successful errands. Hooray!
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5 comments:

disabled account said...

i work with about a kajillion people who all have an iphone and they all love it! they forward their work email to their phones and do all sorts of other things with them. i know my boss loves that it's also an 8 gig ipod so she just gave her nano away when she got it. sometimes i feel like i'm all ghetto with my lg shine, but then i get to check and see if i have food in my teeth with the mirror on it and i'm okay, haha!

anyway, i know what you mean with the neighbor noise and the distraction it lends. just remember, it can be worse. at least they're not making meth, right? have fun with your errands and your xmas music. i'm going to go make some more cookies. woohoo!

Bridgete said...

Two phones ago my phone had a mirror. I liked that phone. I lost it when I lost my purse, then got it back when my purse was randomly mailed back to me, but by that time I'd already replaced the phone. With a hunk of junk, I might add...I probably would have ended up waiting a little longer on the iPhone had it not been for the piece of crap I was trying to use.

Yeah, I know, it really could be worse. I think I was only annoyed because it's usually really quiet here.

I had a great time on my errands. I'm about to update the post to explain why it was so great. =)

Unknown said...

Hey thanks for clarifying that, for some reason (probably because I am sadly tech challenged) I thought they were the same thing. Might upgrade the iPod only so that is good to know!

Matt used the genius feature when he was taking the T to work every day & swore by it too. I have an oldie 30G so its not available. That's OK, I'd say about 30% of my music is either Jason or Melissa Ferrick anyway so my lists would get pretty boring. lol

Kudos on the new bed purchase (the best purchase ever since you'll spend so much time in it!) and good luck with the motion you get to write. It is so cool you are loving your job and the path you're on :)

pastrywitch said...

There's a really good set of French cd's by Michel Thomas; I found it at the library. It's all conversation, no bookwork. His priorities are a bit odd. You'll learn to say "Will you have dinner with me"? and "I'm sorry, but it's not comfortable for me like that" before you learn to say "Hello". Maybe he's getting students ready for speed dating.

Bridgete said...

lol, Kate, that is hilarious. French speed dating! Anyway, thanks for the recommendation, I'll look into them. The mixed-up priorities shouldn't be a problem since I can already say "hello." =)