Crab Media

You're Back, Why Don't You Post

2007-08-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

A commenter asked below: if you are back, why don't you post? A fair question, it would seem.

Today I worked a 12 hour shift (13 with breaks) doing something joyful called "priv review." Basically, I read a large stack of documents and make judgments about how the rules of attorney-client privilege and attorney work-product doctrine would apply to such documents. It's not hard work in the sense that driving a jeep in Baghdad for the military, or mining coal, or even handling a crane or an 18-wheeler or just waiting tables in a crowded restaurant are hard. It's hard work in the way that gem cutting and doing a surgical stitch are hard. Detail-oriented work, vague documents, vague rules, demanding (though professional and courteous) attorney bosses and a drop-dead deadline. My boss has authorized unlimited overtime; I could work 100 hours a week if I had a shower and a cot across the street from the office (and no family responsibilities.)

When I do post, I prefer to post in the neighborhoods of Crab Media rather than at the "information bureau" here. My time is limited, and often what I want to say in that limited time is more applicable to specific readerships of specific blogs. "This one goes out to all some of my 'peeps'" as it were.

Meta - The Crab is Indeed Back

2007-08-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

Vacation from blogging is over, finally. After needing to take a break for personal reasons, professional reasons, mini-vacation reasons, I am back and crabbier than ever.

Meta: The Crab Works Hard, Plays Hard

2007-08-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

My current German-language litigation project is drawing to a close, with expanded hours and some drop-dead deadlines. Accordingly, blogging will continue to be light throughout Crab Media for the next week or so, not from a pseudo-vacation but from the explicit lack of one.

What blogging I do in the very short term, however, may perhaps be occasionally cross-posted on the site of a very prominent liberal-left blogger. More details about this development soon.

This weekend after the document deathmarch my wife and I will get the unthinkable: a weekend in DC as tourists away from the children. The International Spy Museum, Adams-Morgan, Chinatown, maybe the Hirshhorn, Busboys and Poets, or even a bad meal at Taco Bell will be sweeter away from the (happy to have new company themselves) kids. So blogging this weekend will not be sparse, but non-existent.

Health Benefits of Gangsta Rap

2007-08-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

A Public Service Announcement to All My Homies, er, Colleagues and Readers:

One doesn't usually associate health and rap; the actuarial tables for rappers are not good, leading me to wonder whether they are even insurable for life or health coverage.

But gangsta rap been very very good to me, as they say. At the health club I just joined (and love), there is a variety of media to enjoy. One can listen to the talking heads in Washington or the Talking Heads from the '80s, country, two adult contemporary channels on the machines and a lot more. One can listen to mindless dance music that sounds even more mindless than dance music's average.

I take my iPod and listen to podcasts, and those keep me on the machines reasonably well. But nothing beats plugging in the earphones and hearing hard-core rappers laying down their science to make a 20-minute set seem like 90 seconds.

Not rapping about love, or how cute the opposite sex finds them (homosexuality having not encountered a warm reception in the rap world.) No LL Cool J, no Salt 'n' Pepa and absolutely no Kid 'n' Play from the 1980s. Not even the strong sounds of Public Enemy will do. No, a full workout on the treadmill, elliptical machine or stationary bike calls for a rapper rapping about moving a ton of "dirt" through Miami, Brooklyn, Long Beach, about how the little "shorties" want to be the junior gangstas, about getting their cash back to their crib before either the cops or another gangsta finds them. It means Bubba Sparxx, R Kelly, Snoop, maybe Dr. Dre before he went all "gas grill and lawn fertilizer."

One may argue that rap is bad for the country's cultural health but it is helping me to improve my endurance, lung capacity and overall energy level quickly.

Welcome to Crab Media's New Homepage

2007-08-03T17:49:00.001-07:00

Hello and Welcome! This is the new homepage for Crab Media. Crablaw Maryland Weekly and the other projects of Crab Media remain unchanged in operation.

Getting the kinks out of this new homepage will take some time, as the page is indeed very kinky, though sadly not in the prurient sense. Stay tuned while we tear the mustard out of this page.

Test Post

2007-08-03T17:27:00.001-07:00

This is only a test.