Well, I already am, so thanks for the confirmation.

Traits of a Successful Business Person

1. High desire to achieve
2. Moderate desire for power
3. Low desire for interaction with others

The optimal score ranges from this quiz that reflect the above characteristics are an Achievement score of 10 or higher, a Power score between 7 and 11, and an Interaction score less than 4.

Well, I scored a 15, 9, and 4, respectively.

http://bscusa.com/resources/success_quiz/enteringbiznetscape.htm

Random mid-day lazyness

Having put in some billable hours and then off to many administravia type things, I took a second (or more) for some blog-surfing. To whit, there's the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz; I apparently am Iron Man.

Your results:
You are Iron Man

Iron Man 65% Green Lantern 65% Spider-Man 65% The Flash 60% Hulk 60% Superman 55% Catwoman 50% Supergirl 50% Robin 42% Wonder Woman 35% Batman 35%

Inventor. Businessman. Genius.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test



And, something the legal profession counts for:

Immediate Random Musings about Civ 4

I installed the patch, liberating me from zero-terrain hell. However, there's other, ahem, features of the game that I'm having to adjust in the Civ III(edit: THREE, dammit.)-to-Civ IV-as-primary-Civ-game-migration, that I'm not sure I like.

1) Lack of centering on units while moving. I liked the old snap-to design, though it didn't work often. Now, it doesn't seem to work at all. Rather than plot out moves in advance, I might go back to manual control on all. It's just odd to have everything move and THEN be able to try to undo things.

2) Forced Perspective. In single and hotseat, the game seems to switch back to ass-level perspective on the units. Please, I need an overview. And, why change from the diamond-centric map to squares? Civ-Net, anyone? (Yes, I know you can change to a 45 Deg perspective, but see the beginning of this musing. It snaps back. After you go off that map. Not fun to reset it all the time.)

3) Worker Strikes in 3000 BC. Or, How the interface change screwed my capital city. Now I know what that little plus/minus next to the workers does. At some point I probably accidentally clicked that, looking for the on-screen "Leave City Display" button (which doesn't seem to exist. Hey, guy, whatswiththat?) I spent the next thousand-plus game-years assiging the little bastard to work (in the mines!) only to have him sitting his electronic ass at home next game-turn. Each. And. Every. Turn.

4) Non-invading without a formal declaration of invading. Ok, so I find an enemy city. What happened to the "Dammit, you're in my territory, get out!" diplomacy that used to happen? I mean, it was a great way to get on the opposing Civs nerves (even the AI ones) and have them declare war first (only to get stomped). Now, I can't even enter the cultural zone without a "Yes, I declare war on you, you scum" first. What happened to sneak attacks? It kind of gives it away if I can't "accidentally-on-purpose" stumble all them troops across your border if I have to give a statement of intent on crossing the frontier.

The learning curve between Civ III and Civ IV seems to be greater than it was in Civ II to Civ III. What has yet to be seen is whether Civ IV cheats like II or III. II was a notorious cheater. (Planes have range. A fighter can't fly over the entire bloody map without crashing - unless it's Civ II and it's an AI controlled Fighter.)

I'm not sure how this will eventually stack up; Since the Worker Strike didn't help anything at the beginning, my usual game plan is off bigtime. That' and having to find a replacement for the Carthaginians didn't help. At least I got to "found" Judaism, so many bonus points there.

But... I said I was a Lawyer

And it gives me this, anyways!


How evil are you?

Maximum Leader, how can this be?

A post, but not the post I was looking for.

Year In Review. Somewhat.


I meant to have a post on another subject, but that will be at some undetermined, but relatively short time from now. Subjectively. No Warranties, express or implied. You get the picture.

The year is almost over; No shit - really. Yesterday was spent entirely on (1) writing an appeal that I really did not want to write, despite ethical obligations to do so. That, and the VSB is really really finicky about these things getting in on time (by personal experience - not the "this happened to me" personal experience, but the "I can't talk about it for reasons of Confidentiality" personal experience.) and, well, I've grown attached to my clean record and law license. So, with three days to spare on the clock, Rule 5A.12 was complied with in full, and the SOB was sent off. That consumed more time than I really wanted it to. Then again, writing about it now consumed more time than I want to spend on it actually doing it. Meh.

The next thing is Cards. You know, the things people stick in the windows to say "See? Someone sent me a card!" card. Some even had business cards stuck in with them them. Because you can never have too much advertising under the restictions Rule 7.2 has. (I knew the Va.S.Ct rule without looking it up. The Professional Guideline rule, I looked up. For the numbers, not for the content.) That took more time than the abomination, er, appeal took. And more money; I burned through too much postage on the stamping-machine to send the bloody things. And, if you're gonna look in your mailbox and say "I didn't get a card, business or otherwise" well, it usually helps to have mailing addresses. There's still time left (Hannukah doesn't end until January 2, so it's still the "Holiday Season."

I have at least three cases lining up for first of year filings (Ain't the new year fun. It's the race to see if you can get file number 06-1. I started 2005 with file number GV05-1 around here; I probably can do it again. Though, one court's going to be harder to file in than others - a bit further away.) and trying to wrap up a few that I really don't want to have to deal with after the calendar change. A few I will. Some, thankfully, I won't.

One of the biggest things I've learned this year is that people with multiple lawyers in series are bad news. It's not good news news when they tell you about them, it's bad news when you find out after the inks dry on the retainer, but it's worse when you find out a month later that there's been not one prior, but multiple priors. One, especially one from prior domicile jurisidiction, might be livable, but more than one isn't just a red flag, there's also sirens and loud bullhorns. Thankfully, not much skin was lost in learning this lesson, and the intake form got a few more questions on it.

I also met someone who dealt with a Nigerian scam. Yes. Yes. No. Odd. Yes. That's all I can say.

Thankfully, those are few and far between. One of the other things I hope are few and far between are the passing of people I know and respect. One such person passed this year, who, for the short time I knew him, he was an excellent and patient mentor. He is missed by his family, friends, and acquaintances, and I hope the lessons he taught me I will be able to pass on to some other unsuspecting young attorney.

Blogging in drips and drabs

Back a few days ago (on my Birthday) I figured I'd try leaving the "create new post" window open in a tab in Firefox. The result of which: two posts. I was thinking of a third, but it disappeared before I could get the first word out.

Having, some time ago, talked to Robbo and John about this, it seems that solo practitioners (or, those that are part-solo) don't have a lot of time for blogging, but Legal Professors, in house Counsels (or a private and governmental nature), and those senior associate or above in large firms seem to have the time. Maybe it has to do with being my own secretary? If any other Solo/GPs are reading this - have you the time to blog consistently? (Other Attorneys welcome, too - professional curtesy, you know.)

For all that is Holy

Why does my games computer have to fall victim to the CivIV bug?!?!?!

Not that I mind CivIII (and, it runs well on the laptop) but falling victim to the "Gee, there's no terrain at this level of zoom" bug means I have to spend nonexistant (or otherwise already allocated) dollars to bump up the system. Or get a new one, though the chances of that happening are slim.

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?

Yep, it's time I updated this thing. Thus, on the 32nd anniversary of things, I'll do so.

What happened to November? Everything was going along fine until... Well, life is a comedy, or at least sometimes a comedy of errors. More or less, this was November. First, I fiannly decided to do something I'd put off far too long: extract a broken wisdom tooth. I went to an excellent oral surgeon, who had the thing out in short work, not too much pain. Except - I spent more time at the dentist's trying to recover from the nitrous oxide and novicane than it took to have the bloody tooth out in the first place. I'm glad the drive from the dentist to home was a straight shot, because I was not up to lane changes. Vicodin was good, though I managed to wean myself to Tylenol after about 36 hours (This from someone who takes one-quarter doses of Nyquil to sleep only 8 hours.). However, I had a week's worth of antibiotics to take. Which lasted exactly six days - until I broke out in an allergic reaction. So, stop the antibiotic, start the Benedryl. Thankfully, I didn't need more than a few days of Benedryl to get the antibiotics out of my system (I took an early Thanksgiving trip, itching through the whole thing would not have been good, by a long shot.)

That puts me to Thanksgiving: cramming a week's worth of work in two days, since nothing really "went to plan". Which was fine, in the Grand Scheme of Things, except for the few cases where the Clients think they are The Only Client I have, and can't make up their minds whether they want stuff Now, Tomorrow, or Three Days Ago. No matter which one they want, if it's in another firm's hands, or with the Clerk of the Court, it doesn't matter when they want it, since I don't have any control over that. Now, if any of these were paying for the priviledge of being The Only Client, I wouldn't mind. But, they aren't, so, they aren't.