Get to know Moscow

So, you’re new in town or you’ve spent WAY too much time in the library (you know who you are) Well, here’s a brief guide to the top 25 locales of note (listed in no particular order) in the great city of Moscow. The first thing you need to know is, go downtown. That’s basically where everything is. Next, it is really hard to find interesting things to do during your time off. Granted, it’s probably also hard to find time off too. But if you do it right, you can play hard and work only as hard as you actually need to.

1. The Law School. You’re probably here right now. If you don’t know where that is... didn’t I see you at the Plant the other day?
2. The “Mall.” This glorious shopping bonanza contains Macy’s; Ross; Bed, Bath, and Beyond; Qdoba; Starbucks;and other places you can spend your financial aid. It’s not real money anyway — right?
3. The Kibbie Dome. You didn’t come here for the football right? At least tailgating is still fun.
4. The Plantation. Home of the yearly back to school and Halloween parties, karaoke on Friday and Saturday, bar games, bacteria, and the occasional grey-out.
5. The East Side Market. Yes, we are big enough to have an East side. This is the other pseudo-mall that has Safeway, a movie rental place, a Mexican restaurant, a Mongolian BBQ, and a “movie theater.” See Pullman for a decent theater.
6. WinCo. The largest, cheapest, and most annoying grocery store in town. And everyone knows it. It’s always packed - even at 3 a.m.
7. John’s Alley. Hippies, over-priced booze, hippies, and the same crappy jam band every weekend - what more could you ask for. Yes, the band names are different but they are the same. Trust me.
8. The Garden. You can find a law student or five almost every night of the week, but you’ll smell like you had an old school wrestling match in an ash-tray when you come out of there. Mondays = cheap drink night.
9. The Co-op. Locally grown, organic, and gold-covered. There is a bit of an excess of smug and way too much kale.
10. One World Cafe. The best coffee shop in Moscow but good luck finding a table. When you are sick of studying, you can always crack open a Spaten beer.
11. The Beach. Perhaps the only bar on the planet where you can find line dancing, step dancing, and cross-dressers in the same bar — on different nights of the week though. It boasts generally tacky décor, no hard alcohol, and is thoroughly schizophrenic.
12. C.J.’s. Moscow’s only dance club but no self-respecting law student goes here. It’s owned by a guy who told this reporter, “I specifically designed this place to get guys laid.”
13. The Corner Club. Also called, “The Club,” you enter this place a normal person and leave smelling like a fratboy who smoked a carton. It is essentially a concrete bunker that sells cheap tubs.
14. Loco Grinz. Serves great Hawai’ian plate lunch even during our crappy winters.
15. San Miguel’s. It used to be a taco truck. Now it’s the best Mexican food in town. Still, it was better at 2 a.m. on the way home from the bar.
16. Pattie’s Kitchen. Forget Qdoba, this is the place for great burritos. Plus, they cater the Welcome Back Picnic.
17. The Ale House. They brew their own beer, which is pretty good. But the food is usually overcooked and the wait staff is generally pretty bad but you are there for the beer.
18. The Red Door. Moscow’s “fancy” restaurant. A good place for a date, good food, good wine selection, French sauces, and 3L Josh McCarthy as your waitress.
19. Nectar. Good wine selection, an ever-changing menu, and an atmosphere that makes you forget you’re in Moscow, which you’ll want, especially after summer gives up her fight and the slopes are too far away with the homework that you have left to do.
20. Wal-Mart. Your source for cheap plastic crap made in China. Sure, it might be covered in lead or kill you, your children, or your pets but it’s cheap right?
21. Sangria. Another good date place as long as you don’t mind that wonderful Moscow smell of cow and suage drifting in whily you eat. Also a bit ironically, their sangria isn’t very good.
22. Wingers. If I have to explain after you read the name, you lied no your law school application. Uside, they have satelite TV so if you need to watch a game on Fox, you can do it there.
23. The Quiet Bar/University Inn. Lots of law school events happen here and I guess this is another “fancy” place. The Pantry isn’t so hot but the other places to eat and drink are pretty good.
24. The Student Rec Center. If you can avoid the place between 3 and 9 p.m., you’ll be doing yourself a favor. I mean, the view’s not bad but there are so many tools it’s like walking into Home Depot.
25. The 1912 Building. A frequent location for law school get-togethers.

Sadly, that’s about it. But you should be studying anyway.

Questseans

by Ty Bair

In which His Royal Highness Sean Beck, King of Mediasean and Arbitrasean, resolves other people’s disputes.
Dear Sean: How did you become King of Mediasean and Arbitrasean? -Confused in Menard
Dear Confused: Brutal war of succesean, then coronasean.
Dear Sean: I’m really big and pretty, but I’d like to be bigger and prettier. I work really hard in the gym, but I never seem to accomplish anything. You’re pretty ripped. Any advice? -Wants Enormous Legs in Latah.
Dear WELL: Regimentasean of weight repetiseans, in conjunctsean with hydrasean, protein ingestsean, and steroid injectsean.
Dear Sean: I’m confused about global warming. I’ve even heard it might be caused by your irrational hatred of almost everything. Shed some light on this for me. -Skeptical in Moscow.
Dear Skeptical: Total fabricasean! Warming caused by pollusean: internal combustsean, fuel evaporasean, factory emiseans.
Dean Sean: My friend left a frisbee golf game last semester to talk to some stupid client. And somehow I’m the one everyone hates! Should I be mad at him? -Almost Crying on the Ninth Hole.
Dear A.C.: We all make regrettable deciseans. My recommendasean is for benedictsean.
Dear Sean: This whole column is just a total ripoff of that old Adam Sandler Cajun Guy sketch! -Just Out of Sympathy for Hack writers.
Dear JOSH: So what’s your questsean? Anyway, isn’t most sincere form of flattery . . . imitasean?

Someone take my gel

by Eric Haley

To put it in law school terms, I did not foresee that it would be this difficult to give away a canister of premium “fancy” hair manipulator.
Out of the kindness of my heart I have offered an unopened jar of Bed Head (retail $16.95 for a small amount only a true ass would buy) to seven different people and each time I finished my proposal I received a look that made me wonder if I was about to get maced. I don’t understand it; it’s not like I am some stranger in a trench coat offering to baby sit your kids. I am simply trying to brighten someone’s day with the gift of overpriced hair sculpting product. I fail to see what is so damn suspicious about it. My favorite response to my failed charity has been: “Why don’t you want it anymore?” That is a good question – for a person on LSD. Relax Cochese, those fire-breathing cobras you see on my head are just hallucinations and even if they were real, they are hair-less cobras. They don’t need Bed Head.
A sober person on the other hand would look at my bald-ass head and understand why I might not have an interest in hair manipulator anymore. Furthermore, if I grew my hair back out to a length that could be manipulated, I would probably look like Ron Howard and I am no man’s sidekick-buddy, especially not “The Fonz.” I think I will stick with the “Ty Bair” (the editor of the Law School’s other journal), which is 70 percent shaved close to the scalp, 30 percent out of my control.
For those that are still not convinced that this free Bed Head won’t kill them, let me further uncloak the mystery of why I have this canister. See, I was still living in denial at Christmas and couldn’t decide what to get with my $15 JC Penny’s Gift Certificate. All of the sudden, I caught a mirror by the in-store salon and it was like my 18 bangs were feathered about my forehead pleading, “Hey boss, we can’t hold down the fort without some hair manipulator; some really, really expensive hair manipulator.”
When I returned home, I proudly displayed “the answer to my prayers” so my sisters would give me an “Atta Boy” but instead they looked at me like I had just walked into a Jaguar dealership with a clip-on tie.
One of them asked me if I planned on rubbing the canister of hair product in the hope that a Genie would appear and grant me some hair for my bald spots After all, they reasoned, applying the contents to current hair style would be kind of like putting jet fuel in a weed eater – overkill.
So, yeah, I shaved my hair off and I would like to give something back, you know, do something good for mankind. So, mankind, I present to you, hair manipulator.
Someone please catch me at my carrel and take this reminder of painful memories off of my hands. If you still think something is fishy we can do this the right way, give me a peppercorn, I will give you the Bed Head and give you this warranty: When applied to the hair on your head, this product will not kill you, unless you are allergic to one of its many chemicals, then you may be up shit creek and I won’t be supplying a paddle.
I just want closure.

Top 10 reasons you might be a redneck lawyer

by Daniel Malouf

Tired of trying to land that dream job with a prestigious downtown firm? Perhaps the fact that you chose UI Law over other schools indicates that you might well be cut out for something a little, shall we say, different? Consider if any of the following apply to your situation:
10. You are willing to accept bushel of potatoes and half a dozen chickens as retainer.
9. You are embarrassed to park rusty old truck next to fancy cars at Menard Law building.
8. Your suit jacket hangs from gun rack as you drive to interviews.
7. You wish real estate finance class dealt more with double-wides… an’ such.
6. You can hardly wait to show off that belt buckle in a courtroom someday!
5. Rather than scope out a big firm in a big city, you scope out office space near trailer park near [insert Deary, Weiser, Bonner’s Ferry, or former logging town of choice].
4. You’ve ever studied the big game proclamation during class.
3. You’ve ever considered leaving a note on a professor’s door, saying “Please don’t call on me in class today; I’m not prepared because I went steelhead fishing all weekend.”
2. You think chasing an ambulance with a tractor sounds like great fun.
1. You think that if you ever become a judge in your home county, it’ll be easy money- especially since you’ll hardly ever hear a case because you’ll constantly recues yourself on account of being related to one or both parties.