I also hear through the grapevine I might actually get a hireback decision before the new year. Only a few more weeks of paranoid obsession!

Shopping wise, Starbucks has completely sold out of gingerbread syrup... for retail, anyhow. This has been like the quest for the holy grail, I tell you. I've been to almost every SB location on the west side of Vancouver (and that's saying something) and I'm in one store staring at a half dozen big bottles of the stuff , and they're saying they can't sell me one. Hey, if they need them to make coffees for people, fair enough, but you know why they can't sell the big bottles? They're food items and not labelled in french and english, so they can't be retailed. Welcome to Canada.

I found out who makes the stuff, but it looks like a private label deal, since they don't even seem to wholesale the stuff. I swear, I find a connection and I'm going to buy a bloody case of the stuff so I don't go through this next year. Maybe I can bribe a barista...

When I was a law student, this wasn't a big thing. You hung around the lounge, you debated the big issues of the day, you went and had much beer, whatever. Now, I'm an articled student. What that means is that I'm working in a law firm, trying to get hired on as an associate when I get called to the bar shortly, have no life, and incidentally, have real clients so I can't talk about work. What with the "no life" part, not much to JE.

In case anyone is wondering, this is one of the reasons lawyers stick together so much socially: forget common backgrounds and ties, except insofar as they let us convey a lot of meaning about our lives without conveying any real information.

How's your day, Tim?

Crappy, my 18A got denied, and then they 19(24)'ed my pleadings on the other thing I'm working on.

Sorry to hear that, man. My day sucked too - can you say, Rule against Perpetuities?

Oh jeez! That's SO harsh. Will?

Worse. Really old deed, whole bloody thing might escheat, you know? Got dumped on my lap by a partner at 6pm. Due tomorrow.

The law types out there know what I mean.

I know a lot of you folks are in tech (and probably NDAed out the wazoo), which I suspect is much the same. But some of you actually have lives.