WOIFM

Almost Bad-Ass

Jason took a fantastic picture of me at the closing party. At least I think so.

Rannie took this photo of Ernie. Very James Dean, don't you think?

Blogshares

Just for fun, and because I have waaaaaay too much free time (um, yeah...) I'm checking out Blogshares:

Get in on the ground floor, baby. I'm buying into James and Mike while they're bargains.

Legal Issues for Web Developers

Mike pointed me to an excellent article on legal issues for web develpers: Logic Sold Separately - Legal Issues for Developers. (Other articles can be found at the same site)

The good news is that anyone who has hired my firm to draft a web development contract for them has these issues covered.

The Truth About Bowling for Columbine

Why Michael Moore shouldn't have won an award in a Documentary category:

Any polite description would be inadequate, so let me be blunt. Bowling uses deliberate deception as its primary tool of persuasion and effect.... It may make some serious money. But it is a disgrace to the documentary creator's art.

David Hardy nails the strike in Truth about Bowling for Columbine.

Movable Type Tips and Tricks

So that I never lose them again, I list here, without comment and in no particular order, a variety of tips and tricks for use with Movable Type:

NSLog(); - Starting a Blog (with MovableType)
Burningbird: Don't Touch That Button
Burningbird: Movable Type Tips and Tricks
Brad Choate: Movable Type Tips
empty pages - MT Tips & Tricks
mod_rewrite madness part one
Phil Gyford: Writing: Changing Movable Type archive URLs
Love Productions: Movable Type Installation Help
andersja's blog: My Movable Type installation
andersja's blog: Movable Type Archives
Scriptygoddess - Development: Comment Preview
empty pages (some movable type tips & tricks)

"All Iraqi People Want This War"

Reports from a man who went to Iraq to serve as a human shield... and came out as a supporter of the war. He concludes:

Anyone with half a brain must see that Saddam has to be taken out.

From Instapundit.

Patriots Paintball Protestors

MAS says:

Protest the Protesters - Wouldn't it be cool if a bunch of guys dressed up as Paul Revere and Sam Adams armed with paint ball guns opened up on the anti-war protesters? Imagine seeing The Patriots nailing the unwashed idiots with red, white and blue paint balls.

Hmm. That might actually be fun.

UPDATE FOR THE INTELLECTUALLY CHALLENGED: I never dreamed I'd have to say this, but I am NOT advocating that anyone actually DO this. It would be dangerous and very likely illegal to fire paintball weapons at anyone who was not properly equipped. You could be subject to civil and criminal liability if you do; not to mention, Kevin will swing by and start dropping f-bombs on your web site.

On the War

I don't really have much to say about the war at this point, except that it seems to be going more efficiently and with less death than I imagined. If I had the energy, I'd respond to all those who keep logging that tired old notion that this war is somehow about economic or electoral gain rather than the security of our nation and its citizens.

I mean, really. Even if you think so little of our President's moral compass, there are others in this administration - like Condi Rice and Colin Powell to name just two - whose motives really aren't in question. And they have argued in public that Saddam Hussein is was a grave threat to the United States, and that he must be removed. The old "blood for oil" chant just can't withstand that.

Of course, I have a sneaking suspicion that the intended audience of the current "Shock and Awe" campaign isn't just mid-level Iraqi military commanders - it's North Korea.

Final SXSW Dispatch

The rest of the SXSW gallery, including a variety of rogues wearing a cowboy hat, has been up for some time.

Something Else I Learned at SXSW

After Fray Cafe, Jeremy told me that he overheard someone behind his proclaim that maybe some lawyers aren't assholes after all.

I think this was meant as a compliment.

Trial Averted

Trial averted. Client moderately pleased. Weekend restored. Whew.

Signing Off for Now...

I have a trial on Monday, so if you see me blogging or commenting on others' blogs, I'm being a dirty procrastinator. Otherwise, see you next week.

FBI Discovers Bill of Rights

Oh, the irony: Ashcoft's boys stumbled across a missing copy of the Bill of Rights, which was stolen from North Carolina during the Civil War. No reports on how long it took for them to figure out what all that fancy writin' was.

Paging Bjorn Lomborg...

Further evidence that our health care system is in crisis and our environment is filled with poison: U.S. Life Expectancy Reaches All-Time High of 77.2 Years in 2001

Conspicuous Absence

How is it that Brent Simmons didn't have a whole panel to himself at SXSWi, let alone even show up? The more I think about that, the more it baffles me.

SXSW Pictures

I've got about half of my SXSW pictures up. Start at the bottom of the page and scroll up.

SheeShoo

One of the people I got to see last week was the creator of the achingly beautiful SheeShoo. Not only does Jess have a great hand and great eye for design, I love what she's doing with her one-off-reality photography: greyscale, blurry, distorted... capturing memory the way memory captures reality, through transforming filters of one variety or another. It's always great to see a friend grow as an artist.

Pardon My French

Anti-French sentiment has gotten out of control.

Bladder control, that is. Don't drink anything before reading PaveFrance.com, or you'll need to change your pants.

Contrarian Marketing

Maybe I need to go away more often. After four work days (and two weekend days) traveling in Austin, I got back to the office Thursday. In the next 24 hours, I landed four new client matters, two of which were entirely new clients.

I may need to hire that associate sooner than I thought...

Hi There, Cowpoke!

Brad says:

I can't pass up the opportunity to share what may be the best candid photograph of me ever taken, courtesy of the lovely Jessica Reynolds Hutchison, snapped at the Omni Hotel bar while we were in Austin.

He's wrong and I've got the image to prove it.

More coming real soon.

ShyXSW?

Apparently a bunch of folks are kicking themselves for being wallflowers at SXSW, among them James, Michael Buffington, and surprisingly enough, Jish. Hey, there's only so much time in a five day week. I spoke quite a bit with James, not so much with Jish, and had a pleasant over-dinner conversation with Michael (when we smart-mobbed El Sol y Luna at 11:00 p.m. demanding tacos for 50 people - and got them!)

I met a bunch of new people, got to know better some I met last year, and hung with old friends. I didn't get unreasonably drunk (much) and no one booed at my panel. I consider the week a success. Next year, more time with my new friends and lots more with my old ones.

Things I Learned at SXSW

Some of the things I learned at SXSW:

Cam's laptop, fittingly, has warped from the physical effects of its raw computing power.

Anitra and I have a surprising number of things in common.

Once you break through her shy exterior, Jessa is quite sweet and funny, and she may even stick her tongue out at you.

Aaron is scary smart and his powers should only be used for the good of mankind. Hopefully we won't have to blackmail him to accomplish this.

Everything we love about Halcyon runs in the family - especially through his grandfather Caleb.

I need to seriously fortify my web and email security.

The lawyers who came to actually attend the panels (Ernie and Katie) are far cooler than the average lawyer.

I may take my kickball a little too seriously.

So might Josh.

Anil is a rabble-rouser, and he thinks QuickTopics sucks.

Many Austin natives get their exercise along the riverfront, but if you tell a bar full of your friends that you're going for a jog instead of sharing a Friday afternoon beer with them, you might get some funny looks.

MJ has talent in those hands; her dad loves her even though she hasn't yet borne him any grandchildren.

An hour is just not enough time to discuss "Legal Issues" relating to freelancers. Five days straight might not be.

One word: power strips.

A typical day working in a video store doesn't sound like my cup of tea.

I may never need Joshua Davis's technical tips for using Flash; I need every day his thoughts on creativity and staying true to one's own voice.

Michael's wife is a distant cousin of Ernie's. I went to college with Mike's brother Matt, who now lives in the D.C. area. This somehow makes me related to Ernie.

Don't get Rannie upset or you might get shot.

There are some people who might actually tell Tantek to his face that CSS makes their eyes bleed.

Tantek may not have a perfect memory for names, but he can eerily recall the events of over a year ago, do a Google search for "Tantek SXSW Omni drink," come up with this post, and turn to me and say, "Hi, Mike!"

Some people learn visuallly: Matt, Rannie, Michael Buffington, and Heather, to name a few.

The best way to capture Derek's attention is to tell a good story.

George really doesn't look anything like Keifer Sutherland. I was just kidding, dude.

James owns an indestructible camera.

For the first time in my life, I'm not waiting for anything - I'm running headlong at it. Whether this will lead to improved results is still an open question.

"Power strip" is two words, not one.

Sydney is juicy.

Telling true stories can be harder than telling made-up ones; telling true stories about yourself can be harder than telling them about other people.

Jish was once an even bigger stud than he is today.

A cowboy hat can make even the best party just a little bit better.

It is damned hard to say "no" to Molly and I'm not sure how I was able. No, it's not what you think.

The tech stuff is great, but it's getting to meet and see again all these people that makes it an A-list experience.

On returning home, I learned this: Austin in early March is like a womb - warm, comfortable, enveloping. Stepping off the plane on my return I felt wet, naked and hungry. But I'm going home to be with a family that loves me sometimes beyond comprehension, and that will makes all the difference in what happens next.

What have you learned?

UPDATE: I also learned that Lia is my friend.

SXSW

The last 36 hours of so have been a blast. I got into town about 4 pm Austin time, just enough time to go for a quick run around downtown Austin before the festivities began.

The waves of good feeling washed over me before the plane even landed. I looked out the plane window and saw the sun baking the Texas earth. I cracked a huge grin anticpating warmth I had not felt for months. Off the plane, I immediately ran into Nikolai, and we shared a cab downtown.

The weather was in fact gorgeous as I ran from the hotel and down along the river. Scores of natives were out and about, most doing the same thign as me, but most of them were also in far better shape than me. Yes, if you were along the riverfront Friday afternoon, I was the wheezing pale dude in the running shorts.

Break Bread with Brad followed, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that seventy or so people were in attendance. We were at Stubb's BBQ, which was the scene of many fun times in previous years. This year, it was a scene of gluttony. That part of the night was cut short because Lorette Lynn - how dare she - was playing the joint, and we had to clear out the space for the VIP crowd.

I met Ernie the Attorney and we ended up talking for quite a while about the intersection of blogging and the law. I had the fun of introducing him to the other Ernie.

Cam helped me write this entry:

blah blah blah, cam is great.

Pithy, isn't he?

Law Firm Web Site Relaunch

Part of my preparations for going to Austin was that I completely overhauled my law firm web site. (With what time? I actually had to find a loophole in the laws of physics.)

Some of the features of the new site:

• Bolder yellow and gray color scheme replaces the old teal and pale blue.
• Site is much lighter and faster loading - all text and CSS; there are currently no graphics and not a table to be found anywhere on the site.
• The site has a complete nervous breakdown in Netscape 4.7. That's not a bug; it's a feature.
• Improved directory structure - flat and broad for ease of use. I drew inspiration from Greg Knauss and will add more compliant features.
• PHP driven, for easier updating on my end. I'll be tweaking the menu include file for better navigation, but what's there works fine.
• Most importantly, new content which will be updated on a regular basis. I hope to add an RSS feed in the not so distant future.

As always, I designed and coded the whole site myself from scratch. Please let me know what you think.

SXSWi 2003

This morning I'm waiting for the big blue van to whisk me off to the airport for my flight to Austin, where once again I'll be attending SXSW Interactive in my second year as a panelist.

I'll be speaking Monday, March 10, at 10:00 a.m., on the "Freelance Forum: Legal Issues" panel. If you're attending the conference, and ever wanted to ask a lawyer a question about business law without getting charged for it, here's your chance.

If you'll be at the conference and want a chance to meet up, drop me a line!

Long Time No Blog

Yes, it's been a while since my last update, but it's been a helluva ride hte last few weeks. Besides the demands of my work schedule, apparent to those who read about my all-nighter, (brief filed successfully, and then opposing counsel had the cheek to request an extension for the reply!) and getting everything in order for my trip (more on that later) Dineen and I both lost days when she had to go to the hospital for a kidney infection.

No worries, she's fine now and the baby is healthy as a horse and kicks twice as hard. But still, that was a big diversion of my ever-diminished mind share lately.

I expect the next few days will be quite hectic, but filled with blogging nonetheless.