Sometimes I wish judges wouldn't try so hard.

The friendly face of Caillou, with his round cheeks and expression of wide-eyed surprise, has delighted countless young children and won over their parents and grandparents. Today, this charming little character, a creation that sprang from the imagination and from the art of form and colour, is moving out of the world where he welcomes his new baby sister, or gets ready for kindergarten.

Unintentionally, no doubt, he is now making a contribution to the development of commercial arbitration law in the field of intellectual property. What has happened is that the people who consider themselves to be his mothers are engaged in battle for him. The respondent claims exclusive maternity. The appellants believe it was a joint effort. The manner in which their dispute is to be resolved has itself become the subject of a major disagreement, and this is what is now before this Court.
Desputeaux v. Editions Chouette (1987) Inc., Supreme Court of Canada

Dear Self: When you have to choose an article to summarize and present to your seminar class, don’t choose the one with “ontology” in the title just because it’s “weird” and “academic” and reinforces the vague image you have of yourself as intellectual and radical in some undefined but oh-so-slightly kinky way. You do not understand what ontology is. No matter how many times you google “ontology definition” and repeat to yourself “ah yes, being in the world, yes, being, of course” you cannot speak intelligently about ontology as it relates to conceptions of property. You have not read any of the philosophers the article references. In fact you can’t even read the article without becoming infuriated by its stylistic vagaries and imprecisions; perhaps you thought you were reading literary theory? You’re not. That’s how philosophers write. I hope you remember this next time you have to summarize an article, or you’ll end up at 2:00 in the morning cobbling together mangled bits of syntax oversaturated with abstract nouns that you don’t even understand, squinting through your tears and headache and wondering how the fuck you’re going to pull this presentation off… and it would be kind of pathetic to do that twice.

My reading for school hasn't turned up anything ridiculous or absurd lately. I can think of two explanations: either all my course material is thought-prokoving, stimulating and relevant; or I've been brainwashed into absorbing the law without contempt.

I think it's the former. Here's a neat quote from Copyright.

It is wise in any state to encourage letters, and the painful researches of learned men.
Millar v. Taylor, 1769

Introverts of the world, Unite!

Oh hell yeah!

I would totally start a revolution, but I don't want to have to like, talk to anybody about it, you know?

Maybe I'll write a paper about whether introversion is an analogous ground of discrimination under the s.15 Charter guarantee of equality. Although I probably won't. But I have definitely felt oppressed whenever I look at job listings that all require "an outgoing personality." As though talking a lot about nothing makes you a good employee. What-ever.