So I voted today, and what should appear on my ballot but this, this amazing sight! I felt certain that it wasn’t my personal hero (Speech ’56), but rather some other, lesser Jerry Orbach. Turns out I was right. This J. Orbach is some former Cook County judge and former Chicago alderman. Well, shameless electioneering stunts like having the same name as a well-respected character actor won’t get you anywhere with me. I voted for the other guy.

In other Northwestern Alum news, I did not vote for Jack Ryan, even though I have compelling evidence that he, at one time, was sleeping with Jeri Ryan (Speech ’90). Firstly, I took the Democratic ballot, and secondly, even though I consider it a major accomplishment to have bedded Jeri Ryan, it’s not listed anywhere on his official bio page. I have to believe that he’s, for some reason, not running on a platform of sleeping with Hollywood starlets and former beauty pageant winners. I just can’t get behind someone like that. It makes me question his motives for running for Senate in the first place. I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there’s an ongoing controversy about the divorce records, and there are even darker rumors (rumors, mind you!) that may remind certain people of Eric Bischoff and his marriage.

In other Jeri Ryan news, Philthee (Speech ’99) claimed the other day that she went to Northwestern at the same time we did. Well, that’s just not the case, Phil. Faced!

Is it just me, or is the Volokh Conspiracy less interesting lately? The last really interesting thing I read there was Eugene’s call for inventions the Romans could have had, and he hasn’t followed up on it yet! Where is the love?

My personal diagnosis is that there’s been a sharp spike in self-promotional posts from various bloggers, of the “Here’s an article I wrote for some liberatarian rag” or “I’m going to be speaking to five pimply and friendless college conservatives on such and such a date”. There’s also been a lot of “doesn’t this {blank} smack of anti-semitism, and isn’t it just awful but also entirely banal?”

Maybe it’s just the political season, but DAMN these guys are off their game.

UPS left me a mysterious notice last week: two packages, each weighing 1.3 pounds, were coming to me from Minnesota. What could they be? No theory seemed plausible. Turns out they were new mobile phones, a “generous” gift of AT&T wireless.

The story is that AT&T is changing their GSM network from 1900 MHz to 850/1900 MHz (or maybe just 850 MHz, depending on how closely your tin-foil hat is fitted), and the phone I’ve been living with for the past year or so, a Sony Ericsson T68i named “topato”, is now deprecated. So AT&T sent me two new phones (one for each of my lines, which I share with the ladyfriend) — two free “upgrades”. The catch: these phones aren’t really upgrades. There’s been some chatter about this on the blogs, but not on blogs I read. (I guess the DNC hasn’t released a statement on this situation yet).

Anyway, this was the last straw with me and AT&T. So we took our two T68i, our two “NEW! FREE! UPGRADE!” phones, and went to a wireless dealer recommended by a friend. Okay, we went to Hot Doug’s first, and then I got a haircut. But we got new phones, switched to T-Mobile (sorry, Joan, but she’s hotter), and now I have one of those futurephones Warren Ellis is always nattering on about. (This one is named Téodor.) Watch for two T68i and one T226, coming soon to Ebay!

Larry Lessig tells the story of how he lost the Eldred case. What if he’s right? How do you live everyday feeling this way?

This case could have been won. It should have been won. And no matter how hard I try to retell this story to myself, I can’t help believing that my own mistake lost it.