Coming Up Orange, Part II

Writing In Orange does not, it turns out, refer to one's Crayola preferences. Instead, it's an interesting new blog devoted to encouraging random and not so random acts of prose and poetry from and about Orange County, CA. Orange County has much more going on than one might gather from the movies. It is a post-suburban laboratory, swimming in cultural pluralisms and dissonances, heats and beats, live bait and dead presidents. I learned the other night that I know people who know people who hire people to drive their children's car pools—car pool chauffeurs, if you will. I learned the night before that 16% of the county seat lives below the poverty line. Orange County fairly bursts with writerly inspiration. Kudos to Joel Sax for his efforts to let it loose on the Web.

Because You're Worth It

Legally Blonde 2 is now in theaters and has a good cast, including Bob Newhart, Sally Field and Regina "I'm just a little pregnant here" King

Pesky Little Things, Jobs

Hi! I've managed to get through a ton of backlogged work over the last couple of days, but concomitantly it has meant sparse blogging. I'll see what I can do about that in the next hour or so, but while I'm cobbling together some more posts check out these two very wonderful developments to which people have been paying attention while I wasn't paying attention:

Dave Winer is mulling over how one would create a Subscriptions Harmonizer. Knowing that Dave is thinking about this has put a big ol' silly grin on my face. Reason being, there are at least four computers in my life I rely on to get things done (I say at least four, because if I'm working in one of our other offices I'll often just use a "visiting attorney's" setup there rather than tote along a laptop). Some run OS X (mine), others run Windows (hubby's; the firm's). The real reason I've never gotten hooked on this whole aggregator thing is it's simply too big a headache to (1) install an OS-appropriate aggregator on each machine, and (2) customize each aggregator on each machine with my subscriptions. If Dave's Harmonizer pans out, this will be SOOOOOO CONVENIENT. I can't stand it, I can't wait. Go, Big D!

Hugely exciting in a different way is the fact that Daubert on the Web, a site that already was an invaluable resource for any lawyer who deals with expert witness issues (that's most of us), now has Blog 702. The name's a reference to the fact that in the U.S. federal courts Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence is the basis for admitting expert witness testimony. I give you Peter Nordberg's inaugural post:

It is the year 2001, and you think yourself modern. So you labor mightily, tirelessly poring over dusty volumes, to build a web site on Daubert. It is a daunting and transforming task. You confront the mysteries of html. You start having opinions about things like javascript. Abandoning your shame over self-promotion, you link and struggle to get linked in return. You even somehow manage to get yourself crawled by Google.

It is the year 2002. At long last, all your efforts have paid off. Not monetarily, mind you. But spiritually. Your handiwork is finally available to people around the globe, at the merest click of a mouse, and a few people have actually noticed.

Quite a bracing feeling.

But now it is the year 2003, and as it turns out, nobody cares these days, unless you have a blog. So here you are.

Hee! (Just one thing: Give us an R! Give us an S! Give us another S!...) [via Ernie, via Ed]

30,000+ Unsolicited Emails Found Not To Be A Trespass

Just about to grab lunch and settle in with the 78-page Intel v. Hamidi (PDF) decision issued by the California Supreme Court today. Coverage:

• How Appealing


• San Jose Business Journal ("State's high court upholds right of ex-Intel mass mailer")

Two Words, Twice

Cheddar Triscuit. (As an attorney, I always wrote and snacked. As a pregnant attorney, I've gone pro.)

Doorknob Spam. Where's the National Do Not Hang registry, hmm? (As a citizen, this stuff always annoyed me. As a pregnant citizen, I no longer am responsible for the severe bodily harm to be inflicted on any culprit caught in the act.)