Magic Jewball

Well, it’s been an unusual and exhausting day in the New York County Court system and I’m not even a criminal. Yet.

Yes, I was called in for jury duty and like thousands of other saps, I actually showed up. Unlike most people, however, I had high expectations. That’s because last time I served with Jerry Seinfeld. I remember I was so stunned when they called his name out to be in my panel that I snortled inwardly at the poor schmo who had to live life in New York with the same name as Jerry Seinfeld. But then he actually walked up. Long story short (I told you I was exhausted) he was excused, ostensibly because his wife was due to give birth any day but really the judge thought he’d distract the jury. Not that that didn’t happen anyway as he was all anyone (including the judge and the lawyers) could talk about until they inevitably settled and I went home.

Although I didn’t expect to run into anyone famous this time, I was psyched to hear that 100 Centre Street has moved into the 21st Century and gotten WiFi. Score! So I lugged BigMac all the way down to Chinatown with me and prepared to actually have something to do whilst waiting for the call-up. Not so much. The WiFi turned out to exist but not be functioning. The helpful security guy (the place was positively swimming in cops) showed me how his computer wouldn’t connect. “See? See?” he kept saying. FanTASTIC.

It did end up working eventually but naturally as soon as I was settled into the carrel by the window, surfing, working, listening to XM (XM on AOL has a new Mac standalone which is heaven, btw), and playing Quinn Tetris, I was inevitably called. Several people immediately began positioning themselves to grab my prime real estate carrel by the window and I had to pack up and leave. I put BigMac in sleep mode thinking I’d be back or be chosen and get to leave soon either way. Oh bwahahahahaha!

Instead, we went through three rounds of the same question-answer game with pools of 18 jurors at a time. This means I got to hear the life story of 54 people (25% of whom seemed to be dating or married to investment bankers) and such outstanding questions as “Do you think living near Washington Square Park would bias you against my client (who allegedly sold a single crack rock there)?” You could kind of tell which people would say anything to get out of serving on a jury. We had:

• Oh come on, everybody takes drugs.
• My (not described) moral stance precludes me from being impartial.
• Of course he’s guilty. No, innocent. No, right, guilty.
• I think I could be impartial but I won’t really be sure until I hear the evidence.
• I tend to believe cops are more credible than regular people.
• I tend to believe cops are less credible than regular people.
• Oh yeah, what she said.

Come on, folks! One fucking rock! This thing will be over in two days. I made the third round of “Who Wants to Be A Juror?” but alas, there was no consolation prize for me and having sat in and around the courtroom for three hours, I never got on the computer again. I did get a lunch break so I could destroy my shoulder by hauling my laptop around while munching on Chinese sweet cakes (gelatinous rice ball with chopped peanuts in the center and coconut flakes on the outside, anyone?) and looking at tourists looking at knockoff handbags and faux jade jewelry.

Oh! Message to tourists: If you have gotten away from your local main drag of Olive Gardens and Don Pablos and Panera Breads and you find yourself in a place called Chinatown which is teeming with authentic Chinese restaurants run by people actually born in China, why on earth would you eat at Sbarro’s? Yet it was packed and so was McD’s and BK’s. People! Don’t make me go into Sbarro’s and slap you!

I knew by the end I’d end up a criminal.

The Clash - The Call Up

Yesterday, for the first time in many years, I found myself in lovely Washington, DC. Not that I saw any of it as I went straight from Union Station to the Metro so I could get out to Rockville. As I sat for my as-advertised, 31 minute ride on the Red line, I couldn’t help thinking about my daily commute vs. this radically different one. And so I present, in tabular form, a side-by-side comparison.

Well, not that I’m trying to choose a winner but I must give DC props on clean & comfortable plus that whole lack of rats thing. However, they are doomed to lose many points since no one tells me to “step back,” sister.

R.E.M. – (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville

There are several excellent reasons for choosing this week’s track. First off, this song came up on my iPod today whilst riding the train through Baltimore, the very town where I used to listen to it. Second, I’m informed by my houseguest that the name of the song describes the way he feels about his birthday this week (unlike me…. everyone remembers the big countdown to my birthday, we’ll revisit that again later this year).

This band is usually known for quirky party songs and they always seemed too goofy for my taste. In fact, this is the only song by them that I can actually stand. But I think the reason I really love it is that even though it has that trademark bongo-fun sound, the lyrics and the way in which they are sung are really dark and cynical. For instance, there’s this segment with it’s sarcastic final line….

I had a dream last night
The world was set on fire
And everywhere I ran
There wasn’t any water
The temperature increased
The sky was crimson red
The clouds turned into smoke
And everyone was dead
But there’s a smile on my face . . . for everyone

Rock on, Danny Elfman, rock on.

Oingo Boingo – Just Another Day

Well, the houseguests arrive today and I think I’m ready. Luckily, they’re not the types who need to be picked up at the airport or anything. And when I say pick up, I mean it in the Manhattanite sense, which is, I take public transportation to meet you and then guide you back via the Airtrain. There isn’t any of that cushy curbside stop, drop your stuff in my trunk type stuff. But luckily for me, I won’t have to do that at all and I can just sit here and wait for them to arrive before we all go off to stuff ourselves with dinner. Once they inevitably fall asleep at the table (it’ll be 3am their time), I intend to just steal the food right off their plates.

I know I said my houseguests were German but I was only 75% truthful there. One is and the other is really from LA. But he’s lived in Berlin so long now that he’s begun to have a German-inflected English, occasionally searching for the correct word or pronouncing “cool” as something resembling “kül”. But that’s OK, I find it more exotic than LA.

In other news of this weekend, we begin daylight savings time three weeks earlier, a fact that both I and my computer are wholly unprepared for. Being that I wake up long after sunrise all year round and leave work after sunset 90% of the year, the whole saving energy thing resonates with me not at all. All I know is that my sleep pattern gets fucked with and I have to run around changing 5 or 6 clocks. Is consistency too much to ask? Don’t they do fine without this in Arizona? Or Indiana? Or wherever it is that they don’t do this? What is the fucking point?

Now, with the date of the time change being different, I have to deal with the whole computer thing too. My computer at work has to be totally re-imaged, whatever that means, to accommodate the patch that changes the time. Fabulous, so I will lose all my settings for a change of one hour. Then I have to download something for my Blackberry as well. I might as well just live an hour behind for a few weeks. I’m sure the people at jury duty won’t mind me showing up an hour late, right?

I’m going to print out this blog post and bring it with me just to be sure. If nothing else, they may think I’m too insane to be allowed on a jury.

Culture Club – Time (Clock Of The Heart)

Wow, look at the referral I got today!

Excellent.