Extra-textual commentary that makes class worth it

Prof: [After explaining that the will in question was in North Carolina] This will leaves a tract of land to [woman], who apparently was wronged. Notice that it is witnessed by her two brothers, who, under the Second Amendment, are armed and dangerous.

Quantifiably speaking

Prof: It’s almost always more profitable to be the lawyer for the executor than the lawyer for the will. Because money money money money is better than money.

Three cheers for the free market!

Class: [Animated discussion re: Tyco, and whether there is such a thing as "excessive" CEO compensation--arguments touched on the distinction between bad business decisions and "excessive" compensation and on the idea that, presumably, CEOs are paid at whatever rate the market sets]
Prof: [Asks whether we think the punishment of the former Tyco execs was appropriate]
Student: [Says that he thinks the punishment was a bit excessive]
Prof: How do you know that's excessive?
Student: The market didn't set that penalty!

How did he keep his job?

Prof: I had several people that I supervised [in a previous career] that I really questioned whether my boss was sober when he hired them. And since he died of alcoholism ... in the office, I might add....

Guess we'd better pray harder.

Student 1: So what do you do in that [complicated accounting] situation?
Prof: I have no idea. You pray you never see it.
Student 2: There's a homework problem [with that situation].
Prof: Really? ... I assigned that?

Say what?

Direct quotation from toilet paper packaging: Soft Sheets That Last & Last!

I'm wondering exactly how long one needs those "soft sheets" of TP to last.... are we talking rinsing and reusing here?

Would that be protected as free speech?

Prof (walking to dry-erase board to try to draw what he told us afterwards was supposed to be the Nike "swoosh"): I try this every year, and sometimes it comes out obscene, so that's not what I mean.

How not to conduct your espionage activities

Prof (re: Ames v. Commissioner): Every time he met with the Soviet diplomat, he made a large cash deposit to his bank account. So the CIA put two and two together....

Statutory Interpretation of the Day

We’re slogging through another provision of the Uniform Probate Code today, and I wanted to share some of the joy. My favorite section so far: UPC 2-603(b)(4)

If the will creates an alternative devise with respect to a devise for which a substitute gift is created by paragraph (1) or (2), the substitute gift is superseded by the alternative devise only if an expressly designated devisee of the alternative devise is entitled to take under the will.

If your response to that is not “eh?” You are a much smarter person than I am. I diagrammed the sentence and have concluded that it doesn’t mean anything.

However you like to party...

Prof: I had to fast for 12 hours, with for a hypoglycemic is very much like being drunk. Well, without the buzz. And the hangover. But there other ways to get the hangover, one of which is Penn State.

[This was the Monday morning after Notre Dame football was humiliated by Penn State.]

I zoned out and missed the rest of the story....

Prof (re: checking of an audit client's inventory by incompetent auditors): And we never figured out what the property was like 'cause they kept taking pictures of the wing of the plane. But that's kind of a major digression....

Shameless plea for help

Help a grad student! Take my short and simple online survey. Do it today! Tell all your friends.

Thank you, and have a good day.

(Becca--I just fixed the link for you. ~mbr)
Thanks, Mel! You're great. I think it was the weird quotation marks from Word that Blogger can't handle.)
UPDATE: The survey is fixed too. We got our SurveyMonkey guy to do his magic.

Awwww!

Addicted to lolcats? Check out Cute Overload (now on the right).

Putting it bluntly

Guest speaker: [An incentive] doesn't have to be financial. You can incentivize people by appealing to their egos. You can be a bank and give 'em a title.

Guest speaker: Dunkin' Donuts is gonna blow the doors off everybody. ... Krispy Kreme's coffee? BLEAH! It's yucky, right?

Guest speaker: Apple is the best brand extension company in the universe. [Lists examples: iPod, iPod Nano, iPod with video, etc.] ... These guys [Krispy Kreme]? Hot donut! Eighty years later? Hot donut!

Guest speaker: There are so many people out there willing to pay incredible multiples for junk. And you've got junk. So ... put the lipstick on the pig.

Can I go home now?

Student: [asks a question that complicates the discussion]
Prof: Well, we’re in purgatory. Let’s descend into hell.

Is it too late to drop?

Prof, re: review session: I’ll do problems on the board, and you can check them off for the exam—“Good, he can’t do that one; it won’t be on the test.” But “he” is a sick person, so you never know.

unless they're video games

Prof: There are some people who don’t attach emotional value to specific objects in wills—they’re called males.

...in which case we don't care.

[back story: Lapse is when the beneficiary of a will dies before the testator does, and the will didn’t say what to do if that happens.]
Prof: There is never a lapse problem that isn’t the result of bad drafting. Or nuclear war.

Only more expensive

Prof: Now we’ll complicate this a little bit. It’s like when the dentist says this will hurt just a little bit.

When examples go bad

Student: [points out something about a case he’s being grilled on]

Prof: Oh… Yeah… That ruins my theory. Um. I’m going to have a theory about that on Friday. It’ll be good, but you’ll all know that it’s a rationalization… Well for now let’s ignore that, because that makes me look bad.

Romans 12:19?

Prof: At one school where I used to teach, the students would continually talk while you were trying to teach. ... But there was an angel up there, and one of the students got in an auto accident and had to have his jaw wired shut. He didn't say another word the rest of the semester. That was the right thing for God to do.

Step 1: Admit you have a problem.

Prof: Where are my happy Phillies fans? ... Where are my unhappy Mets fans?
Student (apparently from NY): You really had to start off class like that?
Prof: Think of it as a support group. ... Did you have a feeling you wanted to share?