Geeky Chic

I just found out that my estranged father and his mainlander wife had a baby girl a week ago
today.  He took my advice and named her Greta.*  I picked it because
it evokes strength; it’s not a prissy girl name.  I like names that end in “a,” and it has
been in the back of my mind ever since I read The Metamorphosis.  I
find it odd that she’s going to be one of those Chinatown fob babies,
strapped to her mom with one of those crude scarves, yet she’ll bear
the name of a Kafka character due to a whim of her yuppie, 4th
generation half-sister.  Let’s hope that she turns out fine and
that I do not turn into a giant insect.

*My dad rejected my second choice, Ella because he thought it sounded too much like “Aiya!” in Spanish.

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From today’s oral arguments in the MGM v. Grokster case, it appears that the Supes are fretting over their iPods.  Apple may be on my good side again, if the Court upholds the 9th Circuit’s decision.

Edit: And here’s a very different approach to the Terry Sciavo saga.  Very Posnerian in its analysis.

Edit 2: More complete oral argument coverage, including the startling concession from MGM’s attorneys that ripping a CD is legal.

After receiving my Bar results, I soon acquired a vintage, purple Eames rocking chair.

Then I blinked.

Now, the Eames chair juggernaut is unstoppable.  In 6 months time, they’ll be everywhere.  Herman Miller re-introduced the rocking chair in January (it took until this month to fully trickle into stores) and Modernica has a knock-off custom-option,
that yields hundreds of possible combinations.  Both companies
just launched extensive advertising campaigns for the chairs and they
are at the right price point to qualify as an “affordable luxury.”

Now, part of me wonders, if there is some larger viral marketing ploy
out there.  Did the the companies pick up on the big second-hand
market for the chairs?  Or is it the other way around?  Did
they place the vintage chairs on eBay and in the “right” used
contemporary design shops to get the meme out there right before the
large-scale re-introduction of the chairs?  (At the very least,
Herman Miller probably studied the eBay/secondary seller pricing data
because the new and vintage chairs have the same price point.)

I don’t need another distraction because the broad canvas of blue sky
is forcing me to look out my window every 5 seconds (and I need to
finish up a couple of projects so that I can skip town for the
weekend).  But here’s another minor attention-grabber that hopefully will not forebode my or your weekend.

**
Edit: My Local Government Law professor once told our class, “To the
humanities major, utopia is writing the great American novel. 
Having realized that utopias don’t exist, humanity majors go to law
school.”  Well, it looks like an HLS 3L has used the law to find utopia.

Having grown up in S.F. during an era of Catholic school closings and consolidation, it doesn’t surprise me that the city is the paragon of growing trend of great American cities bleeding children:

Despite the fact that I abandoned stroller country (Laurel Heights /
the Richmond) and don’t like kids (yet?), I must admit that living
among affluent retirees and DINKs does make the environment a bit more
desolate — self-centeredness in the aggregate is akin to something
weird in the water.  This article seems to affirm an earlier discussion that it takes a God-awful amount of money to have a family in this place.

Miss Y. is speaking frankly about her young lawyer shopping habits this week, so I’ll add my own consumer wh()re bear alert.  According to the Times , those Loro Piana sweaters are going to be tad pricier come fall, thanks to the anemic dollar:

(Btw, other than the the luxury crimp on European goods, I’m pretty neutral about the weak dollar policy.)

**

Edit: I’m also sad that the Noguchi table is $150 more expensive than this time last year.  Then again, it’s become as ubiquitous as Ikea’s no-frills Lack.

I share living quarters with a fervent Mac enthusiast, but I think that there could be a valid 17200 deceptive business practices class action claim
out there against Apple.  With each successive release/update of
iTunes, they’re taking away rights that I (and likely you) have already
purchased. 
With each “upgrade” they claim that they are offering me a better
product, when in fact, they are modifying the terms of a license (for
which I’ve already paid) without offering me any real
consideration  in return.  Also, they don’t exactly provide
an explicit
notice, that these are the rights that I’m giving away with each
upgrade. it’s up to me to read and compare the Terms and Conditions (do
you even keep old T&Cs around to compare new ones against?). 
Argh.

Here’s something nifty (Thanks, Toasty!).  This is the artist that I tried.

**
And my wallet and disposition are now less green.  I located the Y-3 coat in extra-small.

All I want is:

• A spring break. 
  Last year, I had two spring breaks; I took the one that corresponded
  with Vanderbilt’s Medical School’s calendar, and spent foggy days in
  London town.  Then, during the HLS spring break, I came back here
  and just loafed for a week.  So, now everyone who is currently on
  break, can we switch places for a week?
• The red Y-3 trench coat with
  black Adidas stripes running only on the left side.  It
  simply rocks.  I can’t even find a downloadable photo of it online
  to show it to you (there’s a black one that’s less cool on the Y-3
  website, but the site  has stupid-o Macromedia flash.)  They
  only made 50 of them, and Harput’s
  in Ess Eff was one of the lucky retailers that received exactly 3. The
  last one disappeared off the rack when I was there this weekend. 
  At least the purchaser did the coat justice; she was a stunning,
  statuesque blond who also picked up these sexy and complicated white
  patent leather Y-3 boots that had velco straps running up to the
  knee.  Needless to say, I left the store with my mouth agape
  partially over the much-wanted (price is no object) trench and
  partially over the towering blond who got it.