Saturday, February 16, 2008

Story Time...

One of the thing that really sucks this term is that I have Saturday class. This is the tradeoff for not having class on Tuesdays and Friday so that I am able to work on those days. The class is actually not bad, I'm learning how to draft technology contracts which will be immensely useful to me. My professor doesn't really do any socratic method, he barely even asks questions in class. One of the reasons for this is that he loves telling stories. I will share one now.


When he was working as an attorney in the 80's he had a client who was developing some type of horror video game. They wanted to display random horror films clips throughout the game and needed help acquiring licenses for this. They really wanted to use clips from The Rocky Horror Picture Show so he went and talked to the studio about a possible deal.


The guy he talked to was really excited, but said that he needed to talk to his legal department and get back to him. A couple of days later he called back and told him that he would not be able to offer him a licensing deal. My professor asked why. The studio guy said that it would cost too much money to go back and renegotiate with all the actors to allow for third party licensing for new media. My professor said that it shouldn't be a big deal since this is going to be a non-mainstream game and will probably not even sell that many copies. To that the studio guy said this, "When the studio originally made the film it was not expected that movie would be a success, as such, the actors were paid the bare minimum per day since they were mostly unknown actors. When the movie became a success it was a huge surprise to all and the studio made millions from it. The actors got nothing and were very upset because they did not get to share in the success of the movie. Basically we screwed them over, and we are afraid that they are going to do the same in negotiations over new distribution media, so we rather just not bother."


So in the end lawyers killed the idea of a Horror Picture Show video game. The professor's client ended up using clips from foreign silent movies already in the public domain. This was cheaper too, but I still like to the possibility of a much funner (totally made up that word) game.



Friday, February 15, 2008

Killers-Move Away

[Can't sleep, so here are some lyrics to what I am listening to]







Don't worry bout what might have been






Just tell your woman that you're sorry






And you jumped out of your skin






Listen closely to your motto






Don't worry bout what might have been






Tell the jury that you're sorry






And just jump out of your skin






I wanna jump out of my skin






I wanna jump out of my skin






And watch the clouds





-Killers, Move Away






Thursday, February 14, 2008

Happy Valentines ....

On this Valentine's day I sent somebody flowers (happy), learned that my huge crush from middle school got married (sad), talked to a girl who told me I was her first boy dance (happy), and read about mathematical meat (happy?), surpassed temptation (again one of those secret things, but overall sad), and watched my favorite movie (happy).


Overall a good day I guess.



Tuesday, February 12, 2008

First Day of Work ....

Today was my first day of work at KBK, a good first day. It took me a while to get settled, but everyone was nice and I look forward to working with the people there.


I have like 5 subjects I want to talk about. All about suing random companies under various theories, but I will refrain myself since I am not allowed to talk about ongoing cases. This will suck for me, but at least I get to have fun in the office. I will probably funnel my excitement about the cases with a couple of memos to the boss about what I think the relevant issues are.


In other news, I decided to give up facebook for a week. There are three main reason for this, first I waste too much time there. Second, I did not want to be tempted to log to the website while at work. The last reason is a bit more personal and I will give bonus points to any friends who can figure it out, but I highly doubt they will. I like secrets.



Sunday, February 10, 2008

Miles Updates

Update to the American Express Delta Card post from last month. This morning I received my first bill from Amex noting my bonus 15,000 miles, checked my Delta account and sure enough the miles had posted there too. This means that I got all those miles posted to my account in one month (as opposed to 8-10 weeks they said). There was no sign of my bonus 2,500 miles from having a second card, but a fast call (and I mean fast) took care of that issue and those additional miles should also post soon.


My only complaint so far is that although I get double miles for purchases in groceries stores, gas stations, hardware stores, and cell phone service, these purchases are not in any way noted on the bill. I have to guess if certain stores count as grocery stores, etc. All I get is a number at the end of the statement telling me how many bonus double miles I got, very annoying. My only recourse in this situation is to call Amex and ask if a particular charge counted towards double miles.


I am still waiting for the Netflix offer points to post.


I took advantage of a delta offer and got 25 miles for every dollar I spent a certain online retailer. Very vague I know, but there is a reason for this.


Emiles and erewards accounts are still active and I am earning a small number of miles there. I would be getting more, but I tend to not be eligible for many of the surveys on there.


In any case, I'm really close to my first free ticket.