Monday, December 26, 2005
Festival of Lights (brought to you by Krispy Kreme)
It's only Day 2, and I've already eaten enough donuts to make Homer Simpson blush. I read recently that donuts are the most nutritionally-bereft foodstuff on the planet. They contain enough trans fats per square inch to fill NYC potholes.
Yet still, I crave more.
-LSD
Friday, December 23, 2005
The Shakedown, Part II
Property tax is calculated on the basis of 2 components whose values generally move in opposite directions: land and structure. This is because the value of your house by definition depreciates every year, while the dirt, shrubs, ant hills and squirrel droppings that comprise your land seem to rise inexorably in worth.
(On this basis, given that my house was built in 1929 and a theoretical annual depreciation rate of 5%, it should be valued at about, oh, -$175,000; come to think of it, they should be paying ME to live here! Ha!)
So here's how the game works. At the appointed hour, the assessor (let's call him Ass) knock on your door, briefly casts his appraising eye over your digs, then initiates the following exchange:
Ass: What was your tax bill last year?
Me: About eight grand. Think it'll go up much?
Ass: If by "much" you mean 50-70%, then no, just a smidgin.
Me: Now I understand why they call you the Ass.
Ass: Did I say 50-70%? I meant 80-90...
-LSD
(On this basis, given that my house was built in 1929 and a theoretical annual depreciation rate of 5%, it should be valued at about, oh, -$175,000; come to think of it, they should be paying ME to live here! Ha!)
So here's how the game works. At the appointed hour, the assessor (let's call him Ass) knock on your door, briefly casts his appraising eye over your digs, then initiates the following exchange:
Ass: What was your tax bill last year?
Me: About eight grand. Think it'll go up much?
Ass: If by "much" you mean 50-70%, then no, just a smidgin.
Me: Now I understand why they call you the Ass.
Ass: Did I say 50-70%? I meant 80-90...
-LSD
Monday, December 19, 2005
The Shakedown, Part I
Anxiety is presently permeating the lives of the good burghers of Teaneck. Doing its part to maintain the reputation of Northern New Jersey as the highest taxed region in the nation, the local council has decided it's time to reassess every property in the town. Reassessment is when the town decides to "realign our tax base," which is gibberish for "rachet up your annual property tax bill from the merely ruinous to the stratospheric."
This neat feat is accomplished by sending inspectors to every house in the town during the course of the coming year, with the aim of punishing any homeowner foolish enough to have made improvements to their box of ticky-tacky.
(Sorry, it's been a long day, I'm buggered, to be continued tomorrow...)
-LSD
This neat feat is accomplished by sending inspectors to every house in the town during the course of the coming year, with the aim of punishing any homeowner foolish enough to have made improvements to their box of ticky-tacky.
(Sorry, it's been a long day, I'm buggered, to be continued tomorrow...)
-LSD
Monday, December 12, 2005
Some Winter Gripes
It's Monday, and I'm writing about events on Friday, so they've been simmering a while.
1. Snow Days. For those of you fortunate enough to dwell in sun-soaked climates, snow days occur when great heaps of the fluffy white stuff envelop local roads and prevent our little darlings from getting to school. Fair enough when a foot or more falls, it's not much fun going anywhere in those conditions.
What bemuses me, however, is the dazzling speed with which school administrators, exquisitely alert to the mere hint of a snowflake, manage to get word out to sleep-addled parents before Mother Nature changes her mind: KEEP YOUR SNOT-NOSED RUGRATS AT HOME.
For instance, Friday morning at 6.30am, with barely half an inch on the ground, our phone rings. It's my daughter's kindy teacher, barely able to contain the glee in her voice, informing us that "due to safety concerns arising from the arctic blizzard presently in our midst, there will be no nursery school today." When I played back the voicemail, I could've sworn I heard the clink of champagne glasses in the background.
2. Is there something about untied shoelaces that is so egregious to a human being's innate sense of order that this dissonance can't go unremarked upon? Never mind that it's rush hour, that the snow is pelting down, and that I'm wading through several inches of the grey filthy slush that makes New York City sidewalks so edifying during winter. At least half a dozen people on West 40th street between 7th and 8th Avenue felt compelled to stop me and point out that my left shoelace is undone. Each observation-come-rebuke carries the unspoken expectation that I must drop to my haunches then and there to rectify the matter.
Perhaps shoelace neglect is all that separates the hoboes from the merely unkempt? I'll leave you to ponder that while I zip up my fly (d'oh.)
-LSD
1. Snow Days. For those of you fortunate enough to dwell in sun-soaked climates, snow days occur when great heaps of the fluffy white stuff envelop local roads and prevent our little darlings from getting to school. Fair enough when a foot or more falls, it's not much fun going anywhere in those conditions.
What bemuses me, however, is the dazzling speed with which school administrators, exquisitely alert to the mere hint of a snowflake, manage to get word out to sleep-addled parents before Mother Nature changes her mind: KEEP YOUR SNOT-NOSED RUGRATS AT HOME.
For instance, Friday morning at 6.30am, with barely half an inch on the ground, our phone rings. It's my daughter's kindy teacher, barely able to contain the glee in her voice, informing us that "due to safety concerns arising from the arctic blizzard presently in our midst, there will be no nursery school today." When I played back the voicemail, I could've sworn I heard the clink of champagne glasses in the background.
2. Is there something about untied shoelaces that is so egregious to a human being's innate sense of order that this dissonance can't go unremarked upon? Never mind that it's rush hour, that the snow is pelting down, and that I'm wading through several inches of the grey filthy slush that makes New York City sidewalks so edifying during winter. At least half a dozen people on West 40th street between 7th and 8th Avenue felt compelled to stop me and point out that my left shoelace is undone. Each observation-come-rebuke carries the unspoken expectation that I must drop to my haunches then and there to rectify the matter.
Perhaps shoelace neglect is all that separates the hoboes from the merely unkempt? I'll leave you to ponder that while I zip up my fly (d'oh.)
-LSD
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
All Torts all the Time
Although Torts textbooks are full of fascinating negligence cases that relate the travails of hospital visitors beheaded by malfunctioning elevators, lamp post-bound drivers distracted by naked bungee jumpers, and most famously, unsuspecting railroad passengers maimed by the detonation of explosives-laden luggage, most lawyers I speak to tell me they haven't had much use for the principles and theories of Torts in their daily practice.
But as I enter my final week of Torts, I'm pleased to be able to point out at least two real-world applications that have made this entire exercise worthwhile:
1. When choosing a hospital, particularly if you intend to be medically malpracticed upon by your physician, be sure to select an institution incorporated as a for-profit entity rather than a charitable organization. Hospitals in the latter category are statutorily protected by nasty little devices known as immunity caps, which prevent you from squeezing every last dollar from the well-lined pockets of the vicariously tortious hospital's insurance company as compensation for your suffering from the surprisingly broad range of real and quasi injuries judiciously documented by your enterprising emergency transportation vehicle-pursuing attorney.
2. For those of you living in New York State: when purchasing prescriptions drugs or medical devices, avoid your local mom and pop-type pharmacy. By satisfying your pharmaceutical needs at a branch of one of the behemoth drugstore chains, you can take comfort in the knowledge that, should one of the products you bought turn out to be both defective and manufactured by an out-of-state company that's fled to the Cayman Islands, you can sue your heavily indemnified drug retailer for wantonly selling you that "guaranteed-relief" hemorrhoid applicator that caused your left ear to fall off.
-LSD
But as I enter my final week of Torts, I'm pleased to be able to point out at least two real-world applications that have made this entire exercise worthwhile:
1. When choosing a hospital, particularly if you intend to be medically malpracticed upon by your physician, be sure to select an institution incorporated as a for-profit entity rather than a charitable organization. Hospitals in the latter category are statutorily protected by nasty little devices known as immunity caps, which prevent you from squeezing every last dollar from the well-lined pockets of the vicariously tortious hospital's insurance company as compensation for your suffering from the surprisingly broad range of real and quasi injuries judiciously documented by your enterprising emergency transportation vehicle-pursuing attorney.
2. For those of you living in New York State: when purchasing prescriptions drugs or medical devices, avoid your local mom and pop-type pharmacy. By satisfying your pharmaceutical needs at a branch of one of the behemoth drugstore chains, you can take comfort in the knowledge that, should one of the products you bought turn out to be both defective and manufactured by an out-of-state company that's fled to the Cayman Islands, you can sue your heavily indemnified drug retailer for wantonly selling you that "guaranteed-relief" hemorrhoid applicator that caused your left ear to fall off.
-LSD
Thursday, December 01, 2005
So THAT'S What That Smell Was
I must apologise for neglecting my LSD duties of late. Wish I could say that this is because I've been consumed by study in preparation for exams that will be upon me in ...ohmygodpleasehelpme ohmygodpleashelpme ohmygodpleashelpme... ten days time. Not so. Sick kids, broken cars, meddling mothers in law (okay, I only have one, but she multiplies at will) have conspired to ensure my anxiety levels are well and truly humming.
A sure indicator of exam time around the law school is the notable decline in hygiene standards of my colleagues. Unkempt hair, repeat-clothing offences, mismatched socks, some genuinely impressive accumulations of ear wax ... I myself have been guilty of a somewhat lengthy failure to rotate the 'ol under-dacks. It was only when the chafing grew so bad as to draw tears that I bothered to look down for the cause. I'm happy to report that, following a 90-minute session with an ice scraper and some vaseline, said undergarments (and a thin layer of epidermis) were succesfully extracted.
-LSD
A sure indicator of exam time around the law school is the notable decline in hygiene standards of my colleagues. Unkempt hair, repeat-clothing offences, mismatched socks, some genuinely impressive accumulations of ear wax ... I myself have been guilty of a somewhat lengthy failure to rotate the 'ol under-dacks. It was only when the chafing grew so bad as to draw tears that I bothered to look down for the cause. I'm happy to report that, following a 90-minute session with an ice scraper and some vaseline, said undergarments (and a thin layer of epidermis) were succesfully extracted.
-LSD
