I got a letter from the government the other day I opened and read it, it said they were suckers

I spent the day at the courthouse for the jury selection process. It turns out that when you don't respond* to a summons they get a little bent out of shape and put your name at the top of the list for the next time around. There was no putting it off this time.

So, like a good boy, I showed up at the courthouse early and went to the jury services room. I sat there, watched a video about the jury selection process**, and waited for my number to be called. The woman announced that it was a slow court day, so she read all of our numbers and said we were going to lunch. At 9:30. In the morning. And that we were to report back at 12:30.

Luckily I'd brought some work along with me, so I read a few research articles during the downtime***.

When it came time to report back, I did. We sat there for about another thirty minutes, then they called out a group of numbers, had us all line up, and walked us to the court room. My number was so low that I was sitting in the jury box. The defendant in the case was sitting directly in front of me. So were the district attorneys.

The attorneys read off a long list of potential witnesses, and the judge asked if any of the potential jurors knew anyone on that list. Then she asked if any of us knew the defendant, his attorneys, or the DA and his assistant. The assistant was cute, so I wish I would have had the sack to raise my hand and say, "No, but I'd like to know her." It probably wouldn't have gone over well.

I'm leaving town this week to present my research at some meetings, so I asked to be excused from service. Luckily, the judge accepted that as a valid excuse and let me go. It would've been an interesting trial to be a part of though. I felt like I was in a movie when the D.A. stood up and told us about the nature of the case. The defendant was charged with murder and robbery with a deadly weapon.

The moral of the story? When you're buying crack cocaine in a dark alleyway in North Las Vegas, don't flash a huge wad of cash to your dealer. It's a good way to get yourself shot in the head and your money stolen. Whether it was the defendant who did the shooting or not is up to the remaining members of the jury pool to decide*****.









*I thought I responded to my first jury summons, but I didn't read it carefully enough. I didn't realize that I had to call in twice. I only called in once to see if my number was on their list of those who needed to report. It wasn't, but that was because I didn't call the first time to respond. Oops! My bad. I wasn't trying to be in contempt of court.

**BORING!!!

***Kind of boring, but not as boring as the video.

****It felt like we were some sort of unholy cross between a herd of cattle and a Kindergarten class.

*****Since it is a young man's life on the line, I'm glad I don't have to be part of that decision making process.

Helplessly fucked in the ass by a legion of forty ex-cons*

I went to an emo bar with two of my friends Friday night (before the DUI incident). One of my friends used to go there regularly, so he knew a few people and introduced us.

Shortly after our introduction:

Girl: How do you guys know [Friend 1]?
Friend 1: Internet chat room.
Girl: Really?
Me: Yeah - preoptrannies.com.
Girl: No. Seriously, how did you meet him?
Me: Ok, so it wasn't that one, but it really was a chat room.
Girl: Are you serious?
Me: Yeah, it was through meet an inmate. He was my pen pal while I was in prison.
Girl: Really?

Meeting new people can be so much fun.

Later in the evening:

Friend 1: Man, I'm feeling real negative. All I want to do is talk shit about everyone. It must be because I'm around [Minnow].
Friend 2 (to me): Do you talk a lot of shit?
Me: Who, me? Well, not about everybody. Well, ok, almost everybody.
Friend 2: What do you say about me?
Me: I can't tell you that.
Friend 2: No, I'm serious.
Me: You really want to know?
Friend 2: Yeah.
Me: Ok. I think the only thing I've ever said about you is that I'm glad you like to show off your cleavage because it's so nice.
Friend 2 (blushing): Really?
Friend 1: Yeah. Especially in that green dress you had on the other day. The first time I saw you wear it I wanted to bang you.
Friend 2: . . .

At the beginning of the evening Friend 1 mentioned that his goal for the night was to do or say something that would make it onto my blog. Mission Accomplished.




* I've wanted to work this Oingo Boingo lyric into a title for a long time. You have no idea how delighted I am to finally have a post that kind of fit.

A smooth criminal

Yesterday when I called to tell my daughter happy birthday, my son informed me that their house had been broken into. Someone took the screen off one of the windows using a screw driver, and then came into the house.

That's a scary thing to think about, but luckily nothing bad happened.

My ex and her husband had left some credit cards and some money out on one of the counters, not to mention all the electronics they have in the living room, but none of that was touched. The only thing that was missing was a stack of self help books.

Seriously, who does that?

The burning metals of my mind

Sometimes I have dark thoughts. I've always thought that I was born with a criminal mind because I'm always thinking about how I can get away with things if I were to try them. I actually think that I'm smart enough that I could pull anything off once, but I'd feel too guilty about it afterwards and would probably end up turning myself in. Stupid conscience.

Anyway, as an example I had a dream last night about my ex-wife's brother. In the dream we all found out he was into organized crime. He'd performed a hit and had disposed of the body after cutting off it's head and hands so that it couldn't be identified if found (a la The Sopranos). Unfortunately for him in my dream, one of his bosses had told him to ditch the hands at a gas station, but he didn't bury them very well so they ended up being found, and while they didn't have a body to go along with it, he had somehow left his fingerprints on the hand so they were able to trace it back to him. He was very worried about his family and how they were going to get by while he was in jail. I found myself trying to come up with a way to help him beat the charges. I think we could have done it, but I woke up.

I like my ex-brother-in-law, but if that situation had come up in real life, he could go rot.