• In the comic book cover above, Adventure Comics #281, published way back in 1961, Superboy is made the foster child of Mr. and Mrs. Hurd (as Ma and Pa Kent watch from elsewhere in the courtroom). The question: What’s with Superman and adoptions? A few months ago, we showed you the cover of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #128, published way back in 1970, in which Superman flies through a courthouse window to thwart the adoption of an adult Jimmy Olsen by a wealthy benefactor. (Further, this does not appear to be the same courtroom into which Superboy flew in Adventure Comics # 213).
• The Onion has a little bit of fun with the old television show, “L.A. Law.” Has it really been sixteen years since it went off the air? We should mention that in a recent conversation one of our junior associates mentioned that she had never heard of that program. Sigh.
• According to this post at The New York Times ArtsBeat blog, Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose is suing the makers of the Guitar Hero video game. His claim? He says the company breached its promise not to feature or depict his former bandmate Slash in the video game.
• A few weeks ago, we reported on a contest sponsored by The 1709 Blog mashing up Shakespeare and the perils of modern copyright law. We here at Abnormal Use entered the contest, but alas, we did not win. However, you can see the submission of all the entrants, including that of the winner, by going here and here.
• This is not, by any means, a real estate litigation blog, but we really, really hope there is a trespass to try title suit coming after a woman in Spain has claimed ownership of the sun.
• The New York Times reports on the recent discovery of a 1791 lawsuit against Mozart. Even he was not immune to litigation, it seems. Kudos to University of South Carolina music history professor Peter Hoyt for his scholarship on this issue.

• We hope and trust that you had a fine Thanksgiving yesterday. The comic book cover depicted above is that of Famous Funnies #16 – published way, way back in November of 1935 and speculated to be the very first Thanksgiving-themed comic book cover.
• Today is also Black Friday, which means that if you venture out into the world today in search of would-be Christmas gifts, you do so at your own peril. Our suggestion: Hide from the world today in a tryptophantastic coma and watch college football.
• The Texas State Bar’s Say What?! blog posts humorous hearing and deposition excerpts that were initially compiled by the late U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer in his bar journal column. Music fans that we are, we couldn’t resist sharing this funny excerpt originally published in 1995 and republished on the blog last week:
  

  A. You’ve got to figure I’m a pretty conservative lady. This is the first concert I have ever been to.

  Q. Of any kind?

  A. Well, I take that back. I went to Jerry Lee Lewis when I was 16 years old.

  Q. There was no shooting at that concert, was there?

  A. No. A whole lot of shaking going on, but no shooting.

  Of course, we had to explain to our new associates who Jerry Lee Lewis is. Oh, well.

• Speaking of music, David Post of The Volokh Conspiracy opines on the copyright implications of the new album by Girl Talk, an act known for unsanctioned mash-ups of other group’s songs. Says Post: “Unfortunately,this is just the sort of creative activity that copyright law, in its current incarnation, makes almost impossible for anyone who (unlike Girl Talk) is unwilling to face potentially catastrophic liability risks. It would take you hundreds of hours of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars to clear the rights to this album even if you wanted to — a pretty sorry state for a law that is supposed to be incentivizing, not prohibiting, creative expression to be in.” Post’s co-author, Stewart Baker, also weighs in on this Girl Talk/copyright issue here.
• Yesterday, by the way, was a huge traffic day for our site. In this post, Walter Olson of Overlawyered linked our our “Thanksgiving in 1810, 1910, and 2010,” which was then followed by this post from the well known Instapundit blog linking the same piece. Since then, we’ve had record levels of website traffic from all sorts of different sources.
• Don’t forget: You can follow Abnormal Use on Twitter at @gwblawfirm. (In fact, check out our GWB 2.0 website for all of our social media endeavors as a blog and law firm.).

• Daredevil is the blind superhero whose alter ego is Matt Murdock, a successful New York attorney. You read that right: He is a lawyer by day, costumed superhero by night. (You may remember the awful 2003 film adaptation starring Ben Affleck). But there’s a problem with the cover of Daredevil #230, depicted above and published way back in 1986. Murdock’s desk is way, way too organized to be that of a lawyer – any lawyer – maintaining any type of practice at all. Sure, the phone is off the hook, and there’s a few wads of paper on the floor, but look at how neat the rest of the desk appears to be. It just doesn’t work. (Incidentally, in this particular storyline, Murdock is disbarred after The Kingpin, a nefarious super villain, learns his identity and uses allegations of professional misconduct against Murdock. Are super villains so evil now that they accuse their superhero adversaries of violating their profession’s rules of disciplinary conduct? Yikes!).
• Congratulations to occasional blog contributor, and perhaps more importantly, our boss, Mills Gallivan for receiving the prestigious Robert Hemphill Award from the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association last weekend at its annual meeting in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
• More good news: Mark Herrmann, one of the founders of the Drug and Device Law blog, is triumphantly returning to the blogosphere. However, he won’t be coming back to his own stomping grounds. Rather, he’ll be covering the in house counsel beat at Above the Law. (The official announcement from ATL itself can be found here.).
• Although we only recently discovered the site, the iPhone J.D. blog – dedicated to lawyers using iPhones – celebrated its second anniversary this week.
• We’re too out of the loop to know anything about alcoholic energy drinks, but according to this piece in the Wall Street Journal, the FDA is about to bring the hammer down on them.
• If you’ve not read this article from last week’s New York Times regarding the rise of litigation finance companies, you should. It’s a burgeoning industry, and it’s something defense lawyers should be aware of. (Hat Tip: Civil Procedure and Federal Courts Blog).
• Finally, don’t forget, if you enjoy our daily commentary here, you can receive posts in your email inbox by by inputting your email address into the “Subscribe Via Email” box in the right hand column on this page. You’ll receive one post a day, business days only, save for special occasions or when circumstances warrant.

• We here at Abnormal Use are not sure where we come down on the issue of the possible posthumous pardon of long-dead former Doors frontman Jim Morrison. If you missed this story in the news, Florida governor Charlie Crist is considering a pardon for Morrison for a 1970 conviction for indecent exposure and profanity. That’s a bit puzzling to us. Sure, we could offer you some righteous editorial about currently neglected injustices which are in greater need of attention, but it’s Friday, and we’re too tired to offer such a harangue. We could say that the only reason this made it to the Governor’s desk is that it involves a world famous rock star wrapped in his own bizarre mystique and that petty offenders in the jails receive no such acclaim or calls for assistance. But surely somebody else is going to say that, and our hearts aren’t really in that argument, anyway. But here’s the deal: That criminal conviction is so much a part of the Morrison legend that as fans of rock and roll music we must let it stand. Whether the 1970 conviction was faulty, or whether we as a society have simply come around in forty years to see the underlying conduct as being protected by the First Amendment, let’s not dilute the Doors story with a pardon. (See also The New York Times ArtsBeat blog’s coverage here).
• If you’re not following Tweets of Old on Twitter, you’re certainly missing out. Here’s how they describe what they do: “We attempt to reveal the lives of our predecessors through the tweets of yesteryear: mostly one-line brevities from old newspapers, as they appeared –or close.” Whatever the case, last week, they tweeted this report about an unusual event at an Oklahoma trial presided over by one Judge Trimble in 1935. Ouch!
• This week, The Daily Gamecock – the official student newspaper of the University of South Carolina – began a three part series on the University of South Carolina’s law school. The other components of the story are here and here. (Hat Tip: The Faculty Lounge).
• The 1709 Blog reports on contest pairing Shakespeare and the modern day perils of copyright law. Get this:
  

  “Music and Intellectual Property” is the title of a one-day conference which CLT Conferences is running on 8 December in Central London. Subtitled “Identifying, Protecting and Enforcing Rights in Music”, the programme features a double input from the 1709 Blog: Ben Challis (General Counsel, Glastonbury Festivals Ltd) speaks on “The Glastonbury Tales: the Practicalities of Festival Life and IP“, while Jeremy Phillips takes the chair for the day. There are some other excellent speakers too, and the day promises to scintillate. You can see the full programme here.

  There’s a competition running along with this conference, the prize being complimentary admission — and the fabled free lunch. It goes like this. Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night opens with Duke Orsino saying

  “If music be the food of love, play on,
  Give me excess of it”.

  Your task is to complete the following sentence:
  “If music be the food of love, then copyright is …”

  We here at Abnormal Use love contests, so we are going to use this installment of Friday Links to enter (and attempt to win). Our submission: “If music be the food of love, then copyright is the gastric bypass.” Aren’t we clever? Now, if we win the contest, how are we going to convince our managing partner to let us go to London?

• Feeling nostalgic for law school? Check this out quip from a law student’s blog: “The probability of getting called on in class is inversely related to the degree of preparation spent on said class,” first year law student Tanny writes here at her blog, The Learning Hand, apparently realizing for the first time that lesson we here came to know so long ago.
• We’re big fans of Rick Hasen’s Election Law Blog, which has been around since 2003, the early days of the legal blogosphere. We are pleased to see that he’s in our part of the country today for a conference. He’s in Atlanta, just two hours south of us, so we recommend he find time for a burger at the The Vortex Bar and Grill, if time permits.
• Finally, congratulations to our own Stephanie Flynn, blog author and partner at our firm, are in order. This very day, she’s in New York, New York for the ABA Section of Litigation’s 11th Annual Women in Products Liability Workshop. Stephanie will be co-moderating a panel discussion entitled “Legal Marketing: What Technology Works?” beginning at 4:00 p.m. today. It will center around social media and how it can be used to assist in client development and networking. The panel includes Mercedes Colwin of Gordon & Rees, LLP, Kelly Jones of Harris Beach, PLLC, and Jim Smyth of Ezults L.L.C.

• The comic book cover above is that of Famous Crimes #10, published way, way back in 1949. This is an odd perspective. Note that judge, responding to the hysteria occurring in his courtroom, exclaims, “This is highly irregular – clear the court room at once!” When is the last time you heard a judge describe something as “highly irregular”?
• We like to keep tabs on the South Carolina legal blogosphere, even if the blogs from our state aren’t necessarily focused on products liability. So, congratulations to the South Carolina Family Law Blog, which was recently named one of the top fifty divorce blogs.
• We are disappointed to learn from Gizmodo that Sony has discontinued the Walkman. Yet another technology of yesteryear consigned to the scrapyard of history. Was it only in 1986 that we listened to the Beastie Boys’ License to Ill on our own Walkman? Of course, we shouldn’t complain. Some of the senior partners here are still lamenting the loss of their beloved eight track players, a continuous grieving which prompted one of our junior associates to ask, “What’s an eight track player?” (Additional coverage on the Walkman demise from the Associated Press here and The Consumerist here.).
• How is it that we only just discovered iPhone J.D., a website and blog dedicated to lawyers using iPhones? It’s like it was created just for us. And it has a Twitter account, too!
• Last week, we here at Abnormal Use congratulated the Drug and Device Law blog on its fourth birthday. Last Friday, that blog posted one of its annual philosophical and introspective pieces in the wake of the fourth anniversary of its first post. In fact, in that very post, the authors thanked us for our own piece and even noted that they enjoyed our regular posting of legal themed comic book covers on Fridays. However, we did notice that they didn’t get our name quite right – they called us the Abnormally Dangerous blog. This takes us back to high school when the cool kids acknowledged our existence but didn’t get our names fully correct. Well, we’re just going to run with it, and maybe change our name to what they think it is rather than attempt a correction. That’s right, we’re cool now.

In the spirit of Halloween, we present to you the comic book cover above, Adventure Comics #294, published way back in 1962 (which you might have surmised from the references to JFK, Marilyn Monroe, and Jerry Lewis, all of whom are apparently familiar to Bizarro). With a title like “The Halloween Pranks of the Bizarro Supermen,” though, how can you go wrong?

Rather than link a series of frightfully normal legal news stories, today, we here at Abnormal Use thought we would explore something a bit more apprehension inducing and suited to the holiday at hand. So, to celebrate the occasion, we asked two of our contributors (and our non-blogger associate Nick Farr) to share their thoughts on the movies they fear most. (Specifically excluded are movies about associates attempting to meet billable quotas. We won’t count The Paper Chase, either, although we wonder if anyone still watches that movie, anyway).

Nick Farr: Before I saw The Exorcist as a young teenager, I thought I was pretty tough. The Shining was boring. “It” made me laugh. Halloween just left me with a childhood crush on Jamie Lee Curtis. There was something about The Exorcist, however, that affected me in a way that Betsy Palmer (a/k/a Mrs. Pamela Voorhees) yielding a machete simply could not. Maybe if Michael Myers would have spun his head around backwards, Halloween would have been more to me than a breakthrough performance for another Hollywood starlet. Maybe if Pennywise the Clown would have crab-walked down a flight of stairs, I would not have thought of “It” as an adult-sized Bozo. Even today, when I reminisce about Regan walking into that party and innocently proclaiming, “You’re going to die up there,” chills run down my spine, and those feelings I felt seventeen years ago are resurrected. Tonight, I better sleep with the holy water.

Jim Dedman: The scariest movie I’ve seen would be, of course, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, although that is not the best story I have about a fear-filled work of cinema. In July of 1999, I was a first quarter law student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. That month, I faced one of my first – and most dreaded – finals: Civil Procedure. (That frightful test, written and administered by the now retired Professor Trail, was scary enough.). After enduring that test, I took the rest of the day off, drove to Austin, and saw The Blair Witch Project, then out in theatres for only a few days, at the now defunct Dobie Theatre. Shot in a point of view fashion, the film profiled the misadventures of a group of students who venture out into the Maryland woods to explore the Blair Witch myth. The now defunct Dobie was a small, indie venue, and the particular theatre we were in had less than hundred seats. Imagine seeing that movie in such a place before all the hype and newspaper coverage ruined the original guerrilla style marketing of the film. At that time, there were still people who somehow believe the “found footage” was real. Of course, at the end of the day, I can’t say which was more horrifying, the film or the final.

Kevin Couch: I thought long and hard about the movie that terrifies me the most, and I settled on 1985’s Follow that Bird, a film adaptation of the beloved children series, “Sesame Street.” In the film, Big Bird runs away from home, a much madness ensues. Although you may scoff initially, I ask you, what is not terrifying about human-puppet interaction, especially when Miss Finch, a social worker puppet with the nefarious sounding Feathered Friends Society, is given the power to alter the human-puppet relationships foundational to all that is “Sesame Street”? In addition, given the films Big Brother feel that the social worker knows better than the (albeit nontraditional) family, I’m surprised that the film wasn’t re-released for its twenty-fifth anniversary this summer and run at Tea Party rallies. After all, the real horror of the film (again, aside from the human-puppet interaction) comes after the credits. Who really believes that the sinister Miss Finch is content to let Big Bird stay at Sesame Street? No one. She will come like a thief in the night and remove Big Bird from his nest on the basis that it is in his best interest, and Gordon and Maria will be left only with sorrowful years of fighting the system in the family courts. If a nine-foot yellow bird puppet is not safe from government intrusion, how safe do you think you are? And you thought Nosferatu was scary?

And that dear readers, is all we here at Abnormal Use have to say about scary movies. Of course, the rumor is that this very afternoon, the South Carolina Bar will release the names of those who passed this past summer’s bar exam. What could be scarier than the wait for that?

The comic book cover above is that of Tales of the Unexpected #16, published way back in August of 1957. The “Interplanetary Line-Up” is comprised, apparently, of several costumed party-goers and one actual extraterrestrial, all of whom have been placed in the standard line-up at the police station. It seems that a much easier procedure would have been to simply ask the humans to remove their costumes at the party, thereby utilizing the process of elimination to flush out the alien interloper. Oh, well.

Through this post at the ContractsProf Blog, we are alerted to this open letter from a Boston College 3L seeking to “leave law school, without a degree, at the end of this semester” in exchange for a “full refund of the tuition [the student] paid over the last two and a half years.” The student reasons that this will benefit both parties:

This will benefit both of us: on the one hand, I will be free to return to the teaching career I left to come here. I’ll be able to provide for my family without the crushing weight of my law school loans. On the other hand, this will help BC Law go up in the rankings, since you will not have to report my unemployment at graduation to US News.

The question: If this attempt at contract modification fails, will the student assert that BC’s law school education is unreasonably dangerous and defective? To be determined.

Cynthia Arends of the DRI Blog has this post, entitled “Is 500 Times the Heat of a Jalapeno too Hot?,” which profiles a complaint filed by a couple in Tennessee who allege that Blair’s Mega Death Hot Sauce, served to their son at a Steak-N-Shake restaurant, is “deleterious” and too hot to handle. As Arends notes, surely the fact that the phrase “Mega Death” is in the product name counts for something. (Of course, as litigious as our nation now is, this may prompt a copyright suit by the rock band Megadeth.). Whatever the case, we’ll be keeping our eyes on this case.

Quote of the Day I: “Through the use of chat rooms, any person with a phone line can become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox. Through the use of Web pages, mail exploders, and newsgroups, the same individual can become a pamphleteer. . . . Two hundred years after the framers ratified the Constitution, the Net has taught us what the First Amendment means.” In re J.J., No. D055603, 2010 WL 4033633, at *2 (Cal. Ct. App. Oct. 15, 2010) (striking down probation restrictions that would have prevented 15 year old from using the Internet and social media) (citations omitted) (Hat tip: Technology and Marketing Law Blog).

Quote of the Day II: “I want to make it clear that I’m not after anybody. I don’t want any money. This is not the Lotto. I don’t want to make anybody look bad. I’m just thinking about the next person who comes along and buys a bag of frozen vegetables,” said Tom Hoffman, quoted in this piece in the Lansing State Journal, regarding his finding a frozen frog in his bag of frozen vegetables he had purchased. Somewhere, an attorney, perhaps an in-house counsel, has already printed this article and placed it in a folder labeled “Impeachment.” (Hat Tip: The Consumerist).

The Augusta Chronicle ran a fascinating piece by the Associated Press on this week’s oral argument before the South Carolina Supreme Court regarding the legality of casual poker games. The big news was that the State apparently conceded that under South Carolina’s ancient law banning games of cards or dice, such casual games are permitted. Still no word on whether Monopoly is legal, though. (The Legal Blog Watch has its own post on this matter here.).

The South Carolina Bar’s Law Related Education Committee is seeking attorney judges for their upcoming mock trial competitions. If you’re interested in judging middle or high school mock lawyers in November, February, or March here in South Carolina, please contact Cynthia Cothran at (803) 252-5139 with all deliberate speed.

Finally, happy thirtieth anniversary to Backstreets, the official fan magazine of Bruce Springsteen, the first issue of which was first distributed on October 24, 1980. (Incidentally, this week also marks the thirtieth anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s The River album, released originally on October 17, 1980).

• If you didn’t see this past weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” parody of lawyer Gloria Allred, please see the clip above.
• Alas, poor “Outlaw,” we hardly knew ye. Deadline Hollywood reported this week that NBC finally pulled the plug on the struggling drama just a week after it placed the show on “production hiatus.” (Incidentally, in the law firm world, “production hiatus” is probably a term the senior partners use to describe vacationing associates.). As for “Outlaw,” we were a bit confused by the show’s premise, which we noted in our review of the first episode. The terrible blow of this loss, though, is softened somewhat by the news of a forthcoming Napoleon Dynamite animated series.
• Todd Zywicki of The Volokh Conspiracy notes that the Center for Class Action Fairness has objected to the Classmates.com class action proposed settlement, as the class will receive $117,374, while the lawyers have asked for $1.05 million.
• We congratulate Texas Lawyer Roger G. “Bob” Vial who, according to this post at the Tex Parte Blog, recently spent his 85th birthday working in his law office. According to his Texas Bar profile, he was initially licensed in September of 1950, no doubt making him a temporal contemporary of Don Draper. After long hours of document review, we sometimes feel like we’re octogenarians, but we can’t imagine actually being eighty years old and choosing to come into the law office, or work of any kind, for that matter. Kudos to Mr. Vial for his commitment to the profession.
• The Legal Blog Watch has its own commentary following up on our earlier post about the Wii class action litigation.
• Earlier this week, we published our interview with criminal law professor Mark Osler of the University of St. Thomas School of Law. Here is a post from his blog linking to our post and offering a thought or two on the interview.

Above, you’ll find the cover of Adventure Comics #213, published way back in 1955. (Surely, George McFly read this issue.). Superboy, employing a tactic he would later utilize years later as Superman, flies in through the courtroom window at the precise moment that a verdict is to be delivered by the jury. The question: Is Superman moving for new trial? If so, why not wait until the jury has actually rendered its verdict? After all, the jury may well render the verdict Supes thinks the new evidence demands. And by the way, where’s the counsel table? Oh, well.

Speaking of comic books, last week, The New York Times Artsbeat blog reported that the world famous Comic-Con would remain in San Diego, California until at least 2015. We were hoping it would move here to Greenville, South Carolina. Alas.

The EvidenceProf Blog comments upon a recent opinion from the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, which found that evidence of the defendant’s post crime purchase of a Superman t-shirt was admissible before the jury. There’s a motion in limine we would love to have written. Imagine all of the allusions that could have been placed therein!

Lawyerist has an interesting post about the utility of Twitter for attorneys. We’re still curious about the advantages of Twitter, both as lawyers and lawyer bloggers. If you look to the sidebar on the right hand side of your page, you can see our most recent tweets. Typically, though, we are simply alerting the Twittersphere to our current posts here. However, over the coming weeks, we do have a few exciting things planned for our Twitter account, including the possibility of some live tweeting from an upcoming legal conference.

Meanwhile, Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy analyzes a recent opinion in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that a death row defendant’s conversion to Satanism was admissible in his death penalty retrial. Probably the right result there. (The EvidenceProf Blog also has a piece on this case here.).

Brian Peterson of the West Virginia Law Legal Weblog posts about a bankruptcy judge in Ohio who was so irked by the “document speaks for itself” objection that he has prohibited its usage in his court. This reminds of us of one of our law professors who was similarly annoyed by the “asked and answered” objection, which he insisted was a nonsensical “television objection.” The proper objection, he would tell us, is “repetitious.”

Above, you’ll find the cover of Batman #163, an issue published way back in 1964. We think that defendant Batman may have grounds for a motion for recusal of the the judge, but we doubt it will be granted. And if that’s the jury, we’d hate to see the venire panel.

Don’t forget: You can still nominate our fair site, Abnormal Use, for consideration in the ABA Journal‘s Top 100 Legal Blogs contest. But today is the very last day you can do so. The last day! See our earlier tongue in cheek plea for support here (which also provides instructions how to submit your nomination, which you know you want to do).

Blogger and Law Professor Alberto Bernade at The John Marshall Law School asks, “What’s with all the lawyer shows on tv?!” That, dear readers, is a question that we feel must be asked, especially in light of our recent reviews of the new legal dramas “Outlaw” and “The Defenders.” Just once, we’d like to see a television show in which the first year associates are enduring a harrowing week of document review. Or, perhaps, a program in which one junior associate’s problem of the week is a senior partner’s fondness for serial commas in a particular memorandum of law? Or an episode in which a first year associate’s biggest dilemma is how long it took he or she to draft an answer to a complaint?

Today sees the release of The Social Network, a film about the Facebook, a website. As the operators of a website, we here at Abnormal Use look forward to the day when Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher will craft a film about us. However, our contributor Kevin Couch insists that Leonardo DiCaprio play him in any such film, but we just don’t see it.

Apparently, there is a new law blog dedicated to legal productivity called, of all things, Legal Productivity. We’ll be checking it out. (Hat Tip: The Mac Lawyer).

Eric Goldman of the Technology and Marketing Law Blog has an interesting post on a new New York state case on the discoverability of deleted social networking profile data for impeachment purposes. Remember: Just because your Plaintiff has deleted those incriminating photographs and statements from their Facbeook profile, that doesn’t mean they’re gone forever, at least not yet.