I got called for jury duty this morning, which sounded like fun except for:

(a) I had no sense how long it was going to take, and (b) They had some freakish idea that it would be "fun" to start at 9 in the morning. I've heard tales from strange far-off lands where people start doing communal activities for governance and commerce at such outlandish hours, but -- let's face it folks -- I'm not built for getting up at seven in the morning.

Somehow, though, I straggled out of bed and got my ass downtown. I had some terror, since I got going later than I wanted but was still in desperate need of protein and caffeine -- and since my first glimpse of 8:30am Austin freeway traffic looked much worse than it actually turned out to be. And since it took me ten minutes of circling before I actually found a parking lot that would take my filthy lucre instead of being contract parking only.

But: out of the car at 8:58; at the courthouse, through security, and up to the second floor at 9:05. I had terrified visions of being held IN CONTEMPT OF COURT for me shameless lollygagging but it turns out they hadn't really gotten started yet.

They've got a pretty good system going: they lined us all up in a pre-determined order, efficiently got us into the courtroom, and then we got asked questions by the respective attorneys. Actually, first we got a rambling but geekily charming lecture from judge on what juries did in Texas, and why this wasn't going to take six weeks or probably even more than a day out of our life, and how this wasn't going to be like what we see on the news or on a courtroom drama. By 9:45, we were done, and after a 15 minute bathroom break I found that my services were no longer needed by the state of Texas. They'd already picked their six out of the twelve folks in front of me.

I was a little disappointed, actually: it's interesting to actually see the process in action. But maybe next time they can call me for a 1pm voir dire.

(But seriously, Austin makes even the jury impaneling seriously convenient: you can actually answer your summons -- and I of course did -- through the Internet!)  12:58:44 PM  (comments [])   

Please clear the hell up. I'd like to play with my delightful new toy but there's no damn light.

Love,

Eric

(Yes, I got a digital SLR, yes it's lovely, and boy do I like actually being able to see my focus. I wrung my hands a bit about some of the shortcomings pointed out in the review, but when it comes down to it, I don't care about the missing features and I like the slightly smaller size. My trusty G1 still has a place in my heart -- nothing beats that flip-out LCD panel for framing weird-angled shots. But this is an excellent addition to my arsenal.)

  12:40:40 PM  (comments [])   

(When I started writing this post two days ago, it was still Mozilla Firebird -- yoiks!)

Update: Whoops, I mistakenly called it Netscape Firebird initially. In my defense, I still tend to think of Mozilla as the internal codename for the original Netscape :).  12:38:59 PM  (comments [])