That's pretty much all I have to say. I only saw the last two hours because Agassi took a little long to win his little tennis match. David Hyde Pierce and Jenna Elfman were good hosts.

Other than that... yawn, yawn. The tennis was better.

Hey, I passed my MPRE, that professional responsibility exam I had to take last month, which is a good thing. I got a 98 (out of 150, not 100), and the highest you need in any state is 85, so I'm golden.

I wish I could consider this to be a good indication of the looming bar exam, but it isn't. The MPRE is way easier. Like I said before, it's sort of the written test you have to take at the DMV before they let you take the driving test. If you fail, you just get back in line again. Failing the driving part is a much bigger deal.

I've decided that I'm going to get a dog after I graduate. This may be totally ridiculous and sound stupid and crazy to everyone else (particularly lawyers) but I'm going to get this dog before I take the bar. Particularly if I end up getting a puppy (and let's face it, that's what's going to happen), I'll be home a lot more than when I'm working, so I'll have time to train it. It will make me exercise and be responsible, and will also be a good distraction.

I always knew I'd get a dog eventually, but listening to Colleen and Lizzie and Heather tell their puppy stories, I decided I really couldn't wait any longer than I had to, so I'm going to get it as soon as I settle in Kansas City after graduation.

I have a name and a breed all picked out already, but I'm not quite ready to share because someone will undoubtedly point out everything that's wrong with the name or the breed or both. I did keep in mind that I'd be in an apartment when I picked the breed, so I'm not getting a golden retriever or a border collie or anything that needs to be outside and running 18 hours a day.

As for the cat, I feel sure she'll live. I've heard that cats don't care about other animals as long as they aren't other cats, so she'll just have to get over any invasion issues she might have. The fact is that, although I love my cat to death, I know I'm a dog person at heart, and I need to have one in my life.

I needed something to read today while I was eating my lunch, so I wandered into the magazine section of our library and picked up a month-old weekly Variety.

Just reading through it made me a little nostalgic for my days in L.A. Every morning, by the time we got to work, a copy of the daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, the showbiz "trades," would be in my boss's in-box, and I'd either sneak a peak before he got in, or he'd toss them at me later in the day when he was finished.

The trades are famous for their own little lexicon. For example, this issue had the following headline:

In English, that means the WB Network signed a development deal for a television series with the two brothers who wrote "American Pie."

ABC is the Alphabet net; NBC, the Peacock net. Disney is the Mouse. If a movie (a pic) does good B.O., that's a good thing -- it means it made some money at the box office. Movies (sorry, pix) don't premiere, they bow. Crix review them. The pic may bow a week earlier in H'wood than it does in Gotham (New York City, of course.) Execs don't leave studios, actors don't leave shows -- they ankle them, as in, Andy Richter will ankle "Late Night" after this season. (To their credit, people in the industry don't actually talk like this, the reporters just write that way.)

Nonetheless, it's a whole other world out there, my friends. I miss it only to the extent that you can miss being a part of something so inbred that it's amazing the whole town hasn't collapsed in on itself like a black hole.