I just changed my mind about the death penalty

I say hanging is waaaaay too good one Mr. Troy Gentry, one-half of "country" duo Montgomery Gentry (he's the charming fella with the microphone). The man is officially lower than whale shit, and in a just world, would end up in a similar location after my crew and I forced him to walk the plank.
But Pirate, you say, why all the rage? Here's why:

[A]ccording to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday, there was nothing good or clean about the death of a tame bear named Cubby at the hands of Troy Lee Gentry.

The charges said Gentry killed the bear with a bow and arrow in October 2004 while it was enclosed in a pen on Greenly's property.

Greenly refused to comment on the incident Tuesday, and a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office said she didn't know how large the pen was.

An adult black bear normally weighs 250 to 350 pounds. Cubby had been raised in captivity and was housed at the Wildlife Connection, a private preserve that bills itself as a place where animal lovers can photograph creatures in the wild.

After the kill, Gentry and Greenly allegedly tagged the bear with a Minnesota hunting license and registered it with the state Department of Natural Resources as if it had been killed in the wild.

The kill was videotaped and later edited to make it appear that Gentry had killed the bear in a "fair chase" hunting situation, the indictment said. The hide was sent to a taxidermist in Kentucky.

Ooooo, what tough guy! Wow, it sure must've taken a lot of skill and courage to kill a caged animal that had been raised in captivity! Troy, I hope you saved some of that manly prowess for when you go to prison, I heard that sometime the fellas there get a little rambuncious and like to "tussle." And this time, you'll be in the cage with them, tough guy.

Happy Friday!

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas... unless it's in a courtroom in Vegas.

Ok, if you're ever facing charges in Nevada that may send you to the klink for life, and you look over at your lawyer and see the guy pictured above, don't say I didn't warn you. Here's the story:

LAS VEGAS - A judge ordered a blood-alcohol test for a defense lawyer who was slurring his words, then declared a mistrial after declaring him too tipsy to argue a kidnapping case.

"I don't think you can tell a straight story because you are intoxicated," the judge told Joseph Caramango as she declared a mistrial for his client.

Caramango, 41, acknowledged in court that he was drinking the previous night, but maintained he was not drunk. If convicted, his client faces life in prison.

"I don't believe I've committed any ethical violation," Caramango said Tuesday, disputing the accuracy of the breath-alcohol test. "If it proved anything, it proved I was not intoxicated."

Clark County District Judge Michelle Leavitt announced Caramango had a blood-alcohol level of 0.075 percent. Nevada's legal blood-alcohol limit for drivers is 0.08 percent.

I love the uber-weasly lawyer trick of implying that because he was .005% away from having a BAC that would have made him too drunk to drive, the test showed that he was not intoxicated. Also, Caramango apparently decided to bring a special lady-friend to court with him:

Caramango also identified a woman who accompanied him to court as his ex-girlfriend, Christine, but when questioned by the judge the woman identified herself as Josephine. She said they just met about 20 minutes earlier at a bar and coffee shop.

Nose, prepare to meet grindstone

I'm going back to work tomorrow after a nearly two month hiatus. I know I'm going to regret saying this later, but right now I can't freaking wait. I feel guilty when I'm not doing something productive (I blame the Protestant work ethic for that), and after doing nothing but bar exam-related bullshit for months on end, I'm excited to be doing something that makes a difference in the real world. I know that the firm has really been swamped while I've been away, so I know there's going to be a huge pile of work for me to get cracking on. Today is going to be dedicated to ironing shirts, shining shoes, and planning my lunches for the week. I feel like I get to have my life back for the first time since early 2003 when I started this whole crazy journey.

The Bar Exam: Instant Insanity Maker!

Apparently every bar exam produces some completely crazy behavior on the part of stressed-out examinees who are pushed past their limits. Here's a sampling of the weird stuff that went down during the July 2006 Minnesota State Bar Exam:

• One guy pulled out his own tooth during the exam;
• Somebody else came back from the lunch break slathered in Icy-Hot - needless to say, the people sitting next to her weren't very excited about the smell;
• Another guy was so sleep-deprived that he actually fell asleep for a portion of the essays, during the multi-choice he was given paper towels to soak up blood and some band-aids, I still haven't figured out what the hell that was about.

I know that this is not the sum total of the weirdness that went on at Rivercentre last week, so if you've got a bar exam story, post it here.

The bar exam is over, I am slowly re-joining humanity

It didn't take me too long to figure that the Bar Exam has nothing at all to do with testing people's abilities to practice law comptently and ethically - it is nothing more and nothing less than a primitive hazing ritual dressed up as an intellectual exercise. If you want to join the Crips or the Bloods, you have to endure getting jumped into the gang by surviving a beating from your fellow gang members. If you want to join your state bar, you have to endure the bar exam, which is the mental equivalent of getting jumped in a dark alley by a half dozen prison escapees.

Anyhoo, I survived. Still have ten fingers and ten toes. I can still walk. I still want to assume the fetal position and hide under a desk when I hear the term "rule against perpetuities." I'm slowly rejoining humanity, one baby-step at a time. My readjustment phase to date was consisted of: drink beer, drink whiskey, later, rinse, repeat, attend a baseball game, play Monopoly and actually sit down for a meal with AC, more beer, make use of the Boss' North Shore Cabin for a few days. Tonight: my triumphant return to neighborhood poker - hold onto yer wallets, ye scurvy wretches!

Needless to say, my posting levels should dramatically improve (after making two posts in two months, I've got nowhere to go but up - right?). Coming soon: crazy stuff that happened during the bar exam!