Whooooeeee, that was a busy weekend. What can I say? I'll say this.

Back when I had jury duty, I lunched in a hipster-filled neighborhood of San Francisco called Hayes Valley. On Day One, after eating my RDA of hipster lunch food, I strolled past a restaurant/bakery called Citizen Cake. A voice inside my head commanded me to go inside and peruse their desserts. Being a faithful citizen of Americake, I obeyed the voice.

Many desserts appealed, but only one of them appeared to be the source of the voice in my head. It was a chocolate cake. No, that's not fair to say. Let's try again. It was the chocolate cake.

Something about the way it was frosted, and it's slightly eccentric shape indicated that this was a very special cake. Sure enough, the description had all the necessary buzzwords on it, like:

• Scharffen Berger
• Chocolate ganache
• Chocolate shards
• Diabetes
• Web 2.0

This was the cake for me. Unfortunately, I couldn't very well eat an entire cake on a full stomach in the remaining 10 minutes of my lunch hour. Nor could I bring a cake box into the courtroom without being forced to share. I placated myself with a chocolate chip cookie and vowed to return.

The same thing happened on Day Two of jury duty. Once again, the cake called to me and I admired its dense chocolate aura. Once again I appeased myself with a chocolate chip cookie and swore that one day the cake would be mine.

Over the next several weeks I came up with several plans that would place a member of my family in Hayes Valley. I would practice saying, "Oh, maybe we could pick up a cake at that Citizen place?" without letting my voice crack with excitement and desire. All my plans fell through. No one understood. I was the only one who could hear the cake calling.

Yesterday, it happened. Daisy was off at her grandmother's house for a sleepover, so the wife and I descended upon Hipsters Valley for dinner. We had a lovely dinner including a dessert that was essentially a melted bowl of Scharffen Berger chocolate with cream (ohhhhhhhhhhhhh). Afterwards, I casually demanded that we take a look at the cakes at Citizen Cake.

The wife agreed and upon seeing the cake for the first time, immediately recognized that it was a special cake. "It never hurts to have an extra cake in the fridge!" I squeaked.

So, we bought it, and mmmmmmmm. Is it the very best chocolate cake in the world? I couldn't say for sure, but it's damn freakin' good and I don't know of many other cakes that can talk. I'm off to have a piece now. It'll be my third dessert today.

I hope your weekend was good too.

(ps. I couldn't find a good picture of the cake on the web. Here's the best one.)

The Great Battle between Good and Evil HAS BEGUN!

Well, to be more precise, it's more like the battle between Evil and Evil and Indeterminate Goodness, but make no mistake about it, it HAS BEGUN!

I've written several times about my little backyard lawn and my annual battles with the insipid Oxalis plant. This year I was given a reprieve by the wife. You see, the wife has been making plans to add a room to our house. Well, she won't be physically constructing it (much as she'd like to), but she has been working with an architect and getting bids from contractors. Part of the master plan involves swapping the locations of our tiny backyard lawn and our tiny backyard deck.

For the love of god, please don't ask me why we need to move the lawn where the deck is, and the deck where the lawn is. Long ago I made the decision to leave the details of this remodel to the one person in our house who is capable of understanding how stuff, like a hammer, works. So, if she tells me that we need umpityteen boxes of gluesticks, or a diamond necklace to complete the project, I just nod dumbly.

Anyway, since the lawn and the deck are somehow going to magically transpose themselves, there's really no need for me to keep pretending that I can keep blades of grass alive (Honestly, it's like having a backyard full of thousands of little babies, and we all know how hard it is to keep those things alive). We'll be digging up the damn lawn soon enough, so might as well let it die a horrible horrible death, getting choked out of existence by the vicious Oxalis.

I went with this plan all winter, lazily watching the Oxalis storm across the lawn. Then, something went awry. We started meeting with contractors. One guy didn't bother to make a bid. Another guy quoted us $94,500, and the final guy didn't give us a formal bid, but figured it to be around $120,000.

Whaa?!?! $100,000 for one lousy room?!? For like 325 square feet?

I know this is San Francisco, and anything related to a house is stupidly expensive, but we hadn't planned on spending that much money on one room. It's a deal breaker, a deal smash-to-smithereens-er even.

So, now that there's no remodel project, there's no reason for us to dig up and replant the lawn 5 feet away. Now, I've got to deal with the monster I've created. Want to see what it looks like?


This picture was taken from a deck one story above the "lawn". You see all those cute little yellow flowers decoratively spread throughout the "grass"? That's the Oxalis. Those light green long stalks you see are the same thing. I'd define it's location in the grass as EVERYWHERE.

Meanwhile, a couple of tough-guy weeds, at the top of the picture near the deck, are determined not to get completely squeezed out. They tower above the Oxalis, and they're hardy, so they might be around for a while. There's only a handful of them, but they're mean sonofabitches.

Finally, in the last few weeks, those dark-green plants have sprouted up in the middle of the Oxalis. They're kind of, dare I say it.... grassy looking! They might actually be grass, but it's hard to tell from up here, and damned if I'll go all the way down the stairs into the battlefield. I suspect they're just crabgrass. I guess I'm rooting for them. Go crabgrass!

Either way, it's been entertaining watching the weeds battle each other. Although it's not obvious who the winner will be, it's clear that I'm the big loser.

Today is one of those days where I really feel like blogging, but I don't really have anything to say. "How is that so different from any other day?", you ask. Well well well, the internalized audience is sassy today.

So, let's ramble on.

First, allow me to comment on the 55-word blog entries. Let's do a explanatory timeline

A Couple Days Ago) Inspired by Neel, Mike writes a blog entry in 55 words, telling the story of a guy he met at the movie theater restroom. Mike leaves out the entire gay sex part in order to cram the story into 55 words.
Yesterday) Mike realizes that a better first attempt at writing a 55 word blog entry would have made fun of the fact that it's hard to tell an entire story in just 55 words without running into the limit.
Yesterday evening) Mike crafts meta-entry (not Mehta entry) again using 55 words, and deliberately leaving a sentence unfinished. Mike cackles to himself, impressed by his clever use of the form. Mike briefly considers equally clever blog entries, where he would blog about some topic for an entire year, and then "wake up" revealing that those posts had been a dream. Mike pats self on back.
Later yesterday evening) Mike gets a series of comments in his blog, confused by his entries.
Even later yesterday evening) Mike confirms that he's not crazy by having this conversation with his wife:

Me: Did you read my blog tonight?
Hank: Yes.
Me: Did you read the entry where I run out of words?
Hank: Yes.
Me: So, it made sense? You got the joke?
Hank: Yes. It wasn't funny, but I got the joke.

(To put things in perspective, note that Hank has a rare disease that prevents her from enjoying my humor. It's not technically fatal, but it might as well be. What's the point of living if you can't wallow in the effervescence of my humor? Poor thing.)

I hope that clears things up. The take-home point here is that I am not a good writer. More importantly, I can't construct a joke my way out of a paper bag.

On a totally unrelated note, I've signed up to be a pacer for an upcoming half marathon race. This means that I'll have a little sign on my back stating how fast I plan on running the race (e.g. an hour and a half, or maybe an hour and 45 minutes) and then it's my job to actually complete the race in that time. This allows the other runners to pace themselves against me.

I cannot tell you how stupidly excited about this I am. In every race I've ever run, I've always tried to run it as fast as I could, usually trying to set a personal record for the distance or the course. This is a wearying and increasingly difficult goal. Now, for the first time ever, my goal isn't to run as fast as I can. I still get to fixate on time, but a specific time.

I've been lying in bed, visualizing myself clocking those miles in the race, trying to stay exactly on my target pace. I've been wondering how likely it is that I can come within a few seconds of my target finish time. I've been imagining what it would feel like to nail my target pace time exactly, and how happy I'd be lying in bed that night, smiling giddily to myself like an idiot.

My heart rate is quickening right now just thinking about it.

I realize that I made a mistake in my post where I wrote a 55 word blog entry. I missed the obvious joke.

You've got someone trying to describe an event, using only 55 words, for the first time. The humor lies in awkwardly cramming the story into the format. A funnier ending would have

Our group at work is trying to hire a new employee. We all work from home, but the new company policy is that employees should report to the corporate office. Although my coworkers and I have gotten grandfathered into being able to continue working from home, our new employee will be required to sit quietly at his corporate desk. He'll sit there, mostly alone, while almost everyone he works with sits at home in their Snoopy jammies.

A few of us traveled down to our Silicon Valley office last week to take the potential new-hire out to lunch. Let's call him Larkin. We're still wooing Larkin, so we thought it would be best to show up in person, wearing our big boy clothes. We also wanted to deemphasize the we-work-at-home angle, so we played up our occasional visits to the office.

"Oh yeah, we come down here pretty often."
"Yup, we'd be here whenever you'd need us."
"Let me take you around and show you the office, the good ol' office."

This was a disastrous approach. First, our boss, Al, who also works from home, kept getting lost during the tour. Granted, the building is laid our poorly, but when you're trying to convince an interviewee that you love going to the office, it's counter productive to ask where the bathroom is.

Then, during our tour, Al made the mistake of saying hi to someone he had only previously dealt with via email and phone. The other employee stared blankly at Al, having no idea who he was. Larkin watched as Al vainly tried to prove that he wasn't some hobo off the Silicon Valley streets.

Also, everyone else that we ran into greeted us like they hadn't seen us in 100 years.

"MIKE! Jeez, what brings YOU here?"
"Look! THREE of you guys are here!! Are you quitting?"
"Oh. My. God. The apocalypse."

I'd be surprised if Larkin accepts our offer.

Neel Mehta does this thang where he writes a short story each week, with the caveat being that the story must be exactly 55 words in length. He calls it "55 Fiction Friday". Other bloggers have hopped on the bandwagon.

This is intriguing to me, but aside from the occasional exaggeration into absurdity, I have no abilities in the area of fiction. I will, however, attempt to write a 55 word non-fiction blog entry about my most recent trip to a public restroom. Here goes:

A man stood in front of the restroom door. "I can't open it. I just can't," he admitted cheerfully.

Warily, I opened the door and he peed alongside me, regaling me with unwanted tales of germophobia and OCD. Afterwards I washed my hands slowly to see how he'd exit the bathroom.

He used his elbows.

I reserve the right to delete this post at some point in the near or far future. That date will probably come when my daughter's web surfing and reading skills improve significantly to the point where she might decide to sit down and read her ol' poppy's blog.

That being said, let me start with another disclaimer. Daisy is a smart and capable child. She does some mighty impressive things for a six year old. She reads above her level, has a solid grasp of many mathematical concepts, and can do a slew of music-related activities far better than her old man. What she doesn't do particularly well is draw.

Let us mock.

One of her current school assigments is to do a book report on a biography of Rosa Parks. Part of that effort includes creating a Rosa Parks poster. Here is Daisy's poster. I have entitled it, "Apparently, Rosa Is Still Angry"


Here's what amuses me about the picture:

1. Is Rosa in...could that be...I think Rosa Parks is wearing blackface.
2. What's with the raccoon eyes?
3. Well, if she's not wearing blackface, then she's clearly sporting a tiki mask of some sort.
4. She appears to be doing an acrobatic tribal dance.
5. So so very angry.

It's like Daisy somehow took almost all the black stereotype images and crafted her own racist SUPER picture. If she had stuck a piece of fried chicken in one of Rosa's hands and a hunk of watermelon in the other, Daisy probably would have secured an expulsion from her nice San Francisco school.

Rosa, you have my deepest apologies.

Usually within minutes of meeting a crazy person you can tell.

Sometimes it's the I-don't-give-a-crap appearance. Other times it's the wild look in their eyes. Many times what gives it away is the Crazy Idea. Seems that crazy folk always have a headful of crazy ideas that come spilling out of their flapping gums.

Well, you can be damn sure of one thing, my friends, what I'm about to suggest is NOT a Crazy Idea. It is a fundamental truth of the universe, on par with the mythical grand unification theory. I did not come to this idea easily, nor have I presented it without a near lifetime of evidence supporting it. For the betterment of all mankind, I proudly present the first of Mike's Important Ideas: Nearly All Foods Are Improved By The Addition of Chocolate Chips

Ta dah! So simple! So very true!

Now, I'll admit that not all foods require chocolate. I don't really want chocolate chips on my over-medium eggs, or nestled in my broccoli. So, here are the exceptions to my rule:

• Foods with meats (including eggs and fish)
• Foods with vegetables (including quasi veggies like tomatoes)
• Foods with savory sauces

That's it! Everything else is improved by, nay, virtually REQUIRES chocolate chips.

Bread with chocolate chips? Yum!
Breakfast cereal with chocolate chips? Mmmm!
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with chocolate chips? Yes!!
A bowl of plain pasta? Not so plain now!

Fruits? Man, I cannot believe someone has not genetically engineered apples and bananas to have little chocolate chips in them! This is EASILY a billion dollar market! Come on, Monsanto! My taste buds await.

I want chocolate in my rice, pancakes, and would it kill you to put some chocolate chips in my chocolate bar? So good!

And, frankly, chocolate could be added to a variety of dishes on my exception list. Mole sauce, anyone?

Let's make this happen. It's an Important Idea. Add some chocolate to your foods today.

The Boston Marathon was run today and I wasn't in it.

Blech.

In general, I'm pretty happy with my decision to quit running marathons. It's not like I was going to win one of them, but on days like today I'm a little disappointed. It would have been nice if everyone else had quit too. Is that so much to ask?

Meanwhile, I'm also a little miffed about these grey hairs of mine. It's not that I begrudge their existence. At this point in my life, I fully expect to see them popping up in various places on my head. That's ok with me. What disturbs me is how defiantly they stick out.

I don't mean that their presence is jarring or especially visible against my silky black locks. I mean that they literally stick out. For the most part, my hair is straight, but these little grey bastards can be wavy, occasionally bordering on curly.

They're like pubic hairs. Grey pubes on my head. Combined with my occasional acne, it's like I'm entering old-man puberty. I can't wait to see what starts happening with my penis!

My daughter has a blank diary that came with a small metal lock and key so that one could theoretically secure their private thoughts. Although Daisy has never used the diary, last week she realized that she had misplaced the key and was unable to even open the journal. Her six year-old body soon filled with loss and many tears ensued.

Her mother (Hank) and I examined the lock. This looked like a solveable problem. I assured her I would be able to pick this crappy little lock.

So, Hank purchased a new lock the next time she was in the hardware store and I began to poke at the diary with various pointy objects, trying to figure out how to unlock it. How exactly does one pick a lock? Keep in mind that I'm the opposite of handy. Unhandy? Footy? Lame?

I poked at the lock with a safety pin, a small screwdriver, a bent paper clip, a PDA stylus, and what remained of my pride. No dice. This chintzy lock, which probably cost about 3 cents to make, defied my every attempt to circumvent its rickety security. Eventually I was reduced to talking to myself.

"Why is this not working? Why can't I figure out how to pick this crappy chintzy lock? It looks like I could almost just break it open, so I should be able to pick it pretty easily!..... Wait! What did I just say?"

I quickly realized that this was the holy grail of problems, one of perhaps two in the entire world, that is best solved with a hammer. I didn't have to pick the lock. Neither skill, nor dexterity, nor smarts, nor precision was required here. I could literally smash this problem away.

I raced out to the garage with the diary in tow, plucked my issue-resolver from the toolbox and immediately dashed the lock to bits. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I fixed this problem by banging on it with a hammer! Some days, it's good to be a man. When my wife returned home, I triumphantly showed her the unlocked diary. "How did you do it?" she asked, setting me up with a big fat pitch right across the plate.

I considered brandishing my penis like a bat but instead retorted with, "ZOG PICK LOCK WITH HAMMER!" I crowed, lurching around the kitchen. "SMAAAAAAAASH LOCK!! ZOG SMART!"

"I'm very proud of you," clucked Hank.

Daisy was delighted.

Today I forgot my cardinal rule of running. That rule is:

Never Listen To Dolface

"I'm gonna head over to Marin and hit Dipsea", he began his email taunt. "Anyone care to join me? It should be freakin' gorgeous over there."

I immediately recognized the danger in accepting this invitation. No good can come of running with Dolface. The man has been medically tested to have -6% body fat and he salivates at the opportunity to abuse his body with inhuman trail running.

"No way am I running the Dipsea" I thought to myself, astonished as my fingers typed the words: "That sounds pretty good."

Doh! I hate my fingers.

So, I did 13 miles of horrible horrible trail running with Dolface this morning. The Dipsea trail is constant punishment, almost every step either leading you wearily uphill or dangerously downhill. As an added benefit, 7 weeks of unrelenting rain have rendered the course muddy, slippery, and ankle-twisty. Since I am a clumsy runner on the best of terrain, I was in a constant state of fear, keeping my eyes glued to the trail ahead of me.

Dolface mocked me from ahead.

"Oh, man! Look at those wildflowers!"

Quit it, Dolface. I can't look up or I'll fall.

"Whoa! This view is INCREDIBLE!"

How nice for you.

"Look! Naked women giving out $100 bills AND candy!! I'M GOING TO EAT SKITTLES OFF HER PERKY BREASTS AND GET PAID FOR IT!"

I hope you choke on her nipples.

The run was rainy and brutal. On a flat course, I can run 13 miles in about an hour and a half. Today, it took me over 2 hours and 20 minutes. Out of those 140 minutes, I enjoyed about 3 of them. I think Dolface enjoyed them all.

But, I must admit that the bastard took good care of me. He took his natural pace down a notch, allowing me to keep up and not get lost. He even pointed out the patches of poison oak, knowing that I would otherwise blindly run straight into it. Thanks, Dolface!

Has there ever been an amusement park as blog worthy as Marine World?

Hmmmm, let me ask that question another way.

Can I squeeze one more blog entry out of my annual Spring Break trip to Marine World?

Yes!

Let me start by saying that I'm very pleased to have an amusement park about 35 miles from my house. They have rides, and animal shows, and cotton candy, and my six year-old daughter adores it.

That being said, hooooooooooooooo-eeeeeee, that's a crappy amusement park. Daisy and I took our Third Annual Spring Break trip there and despite our familiarity with the park, I was still able to stand in almost any corner of the place and say, "Oh, look, a blog entry!"

First, I clearly missed the sign at the entrance that must have said, "You Must Have An Eating Disorder To Enter This Park". I believe it was probably next to the one that said, "No Appropriate Attire Allowed".

Most boys over the age of 0 were wearing some sort of gangsta attire. Most girls were wearing much less. Most grownups were either cigarette thin, or cotton candy shaped. All of these people looked like their other hobby was beating up computer programmers.

Second, the corporate owners of the park, Six Flags, have some sort of deal with Warner Brothers which allows them to have characters like Bugs Bunny wandering around. Additionally, many of the kiddie rides are Looney Toon themed. Ok, "themed" is really too strong of a word. Accented? Dusted?

Is it a themed ride when they take a crappy train on a figure-8 track and slap on a picture of Foghorn Leghorn? I don't recall the cartoons where Foghorn Leghorn quipped, "I say, I say, this train moves as fast as a cow with no legs!" (Ok, so sue me, it's been a while since I saw any Foghorn Leghorn).

Plus, all of the rides make ridiculously obnoxious noises. The kiddie rides especially seem to feature some sort of screeching that you'd only expect to hear when the fabric of the universe was being torn apart. This is especially out of place considering that the rides generating this noise are typically moving at roughly 1 mph.

We did, however make our way over to one of the animal shows. Daisy picked the whale show as part of our afternoon entertainment, but when the show started, the announcer informed us that the whale "didn't feel like performing today". Sure enough, the whale made a few quick laps in the main pool and then was ushered out of view into the pools behind the stage. I can only imagine that the whale was out of sorts because perhaps some overzealous Theme Manager slapped a Daffy Duck sticker on her blowhole.

On the third hand, Daisy had a great time. Her unabashed enthusiasm for riding kiddie rides is a joy to behold.

It was a sad day for me today.

After 41 miraculous days, after 130 bone-jarring miles, after 16.5 mind-numbing hours, after one of the rainiest periods that San Francisco has ever known, my streak has finally ended. It rained throughout my innocuous little 5-mile lunchtime run today, bringing an anticlimactic end to my phenomenal streak of not getting rained on during my runs.

It's wasn't all bad though. I had dressed in a vaguely uncomfortable tight stretchy top. The discomfort of the shirt helped distract me from the annoyance of the constant rainfall. Mind over precipitation, my friends.

It's hard coming to grips with the fact that maybe Mother Nature isn't altering the weather for my comfort. I was kind of hoping that this was a perk of being one of the Chosen People. Those 40 years that Moses wandered in the desert? That was really just a longer streak.

Anyway, I'm ok with this. Don't cry for me, blogospheregentina.

Today was the first day of my daughter's Spring Break. Each year I celebrate this "holiday" by making the same tired jokes in my blog. I cleverly juxtapose a cliched MTV-style booze-fueled spring break with the more staid reality of caring for a six year-old whose school has closed for the week.

I'll be doing the same thing again this year.

SPRING FREAKIN' BREAK 2006!!!

The bacchanalia began this morning with EXTREME apple juice shots. Daisy easily pounded half of one while I guzzled down a couple mugs of coffee. OUTRAGEOUS!

Afterwards, Daisy and I took a WICKED drive across town 'cause she was jonesing to hang with one of her gal pals for a house party/playdate. When I dropped her off, I found that I had forgotten both her eyeglasses and her lunch. INSANELY EXCELLENT!! I had a rockin' time driving back home and then back across town again to deliver these party essentials. I totally almost kind of caught some air on a gnarly SF hill.

Way!

You get the idea.

Afterwards I did some birthday shopping for Hank. I think mostly what she needs for her birthday is a better nom du blog. This "Hank" thing has served its purpose pretty well, but perhaps it's not the perfect moniker. There's a pretty thin line between isn't-it-funny-to-pretend-my-wife-has-a-boy's-name and the inevitable addiction to hot man-on-man love. I'm clumsy enough without needing to tread upon that type of slippery slope.

I'm now accepting ideas for her new name.

Party on!

On Saturday night I put money in the sleepover bank.

Each time we host one of Daisy's friends for a sleepover, it becomes more likely that the friend's family will host Daisy for a night some other time. This is what we in the parenting business (which, by the way, is a woefully unprofitable business) refer to as a good deal.

This sleepover actually went pretty smoothly, but they can vary in difficulty. The first one we ever hosted seem to go pretty well until I was woken by one of my least favorite sounds, that of someone else's five year-old puking in my sleeping bag. You know that retchy-squishy sound? That one. I spent a good part of the next hour debarfifying my daughter's room and the puker's hair. The next morning, the kid's mom, who was my sister up until that point, apologized profusely for sending a sick kid to our house and assured us that her daughter rarely pukes.

Crap, where are my manners? If you're squeamish about puke, skip that last paragraph.

Another sleepover was problem-free until around 5:20am, when the visiting child started relentless trips to the toilet. We have a small house with squeaky floors and thin walls, so if someone is making a trip the bathroom, we're all peeing vicariously through them. She went about 3 times in the next hour. All of this after we had practically wrung the urine out of her bladder the previous night before bedtime.

You just never really know what you're going to get with someone else's kid. When they try to wriggle out of eating dinner, and you encourage them to have one more bite of veggies, are you being a good guardian, or are you just upsetting their fragile tummy? Magic eight ball of parenting says.....Puke Again Later.

My daughter is so delighted to have someone sleeping in her room, it would be worthwhile even if we didn't get a quid pro quo mommy-and-daddy date night. Although most of the time her friends conk out and fall asleep long before Daisy is ready to call it quits, every once in a while she lands a chatter. Then we can hear the murmurs and giggles of audacious six year-old plans deep into the evening, as they carefully plot a lifetime of playing by the glow of the nightlight. Although we like to keep Daisy to a regular schedule, this seems like a good reason to stay up late.

But last night's sleepover went perfectly. They went to sleep at a reasonable time and they didn't get up until 7:30 this morning. After breakfast, while Hank and I read the paper and drank coffee, the kids went into the backyard to pick flowers and lemons. Norman Rockwell, eat your heart out.

Oh jury duty, I hardly knew ye.

Today the jury selection process continued. Most of the fight had gone out of the potential jurors by the time the FIFTH FREAKIN' LAWYER interviewed them, so statements like, "I cannot be fair!" were replaced with whimpering and moaning. There were three jurors who stood out during the interview process today.

Bipolar Man: ...And so I know that your client's product causes cancer regardless of what you say.
Defense Lawyer: Are you going to think that no matter what the evidence shows?
Bipolar Man: Yes.
Defense Lawyer: So, if I present scientific evidence proving that brake pad dust does not cause cancer, you'll ignore my evidence?
Bipolar Man: Correct.
Defense Lawyer: If I bring several medical experts to the stand who all agree that brake pad dust is not a cancer causer, and the plaintiff's experts do not disagree, are you still going to disbelieve the evidence?
Bipolar Man: Dude! Your product says that it causes cancer RIGHT ON THE BOX!

Bipolar Man was subsequently dismissed.

Plaintiff's Lawyer: What work did you do on a ship, sir?
Juror X: I was a wiper.
PL: Did you work with *mumblyTechnoBabble* ?
Juror X: I did.
PL: What did you do with them, sir?
Juror X: I wiped them.
PL: Did you work with valves?
Juror X: Yes.
PL: What kind of work did you do with the valves.
Juror X: I wiped them.
PL: Did you work on engine parts?
Juror X: Yes.
PL: Did you fix the engines?
Juror X: No. I wiped them.

I don't even recall seeing that job listed on career day. Anyway, Juror X summed up by saying, "Your Honor, I'd like to recuse myself".

Nice try, buddy. I think you have to be a judge to do that. Wipers need not apply. Juror X became a member of the jury.

Plaintiff's Lawyer: Ok, Juror Y, let me ask you...
Juror Y: Let me make this easy for you. (points at defense lawyers) I hate your companies. I'm completely biased against them. I have no doubt that you caused the plaintiff's injury and you'll get what you have coming to you. There's no way I can be fair.
Plaintiff's Lawyer: No more questions, your Honor.

Juror Y was subsequently dismissed.

Out of the 24 people they interviewed, 11 of them got dismissed. I was surprised the number wasn't higher. That gave them 12 jurors and an alternate. We then played the game all over again with a smaller batch of potential jurors to pick 3 more alternates. I sat quietly through this process, since my name was never called. I got to go home this afternoon.

For my closing arguments, I'd like to say that our juror system is totally broken and that people are apparently either stupid or jerks or both. The crap they'll say to get out of jury duty just stunned me, and I'm not easily stunned. There was no way to weed out the jurors who were really incapable of judging the evidence amongst the avalanch of people who were crying wolf (and I would have been one of them, given the opportunity).

In a surprising amount of seriousness, I recommend two alternatives to our current approach

1) Jury duty should be MANDATORY. You MUST serve on a jury. If you get booted from Trial #1, then you'll immediately get shipped over to Trial #2. That way there's no advantage to claim bias. Let the lawyers truly discern if you're an unfair prick. Along with this approach, let's make another rule that all corporations MUST compensate their employees for jury duty. This business where some companies do pay for it and some don't doesn't make any sense.

OR

2) Professional juries. This would be a job that could be held for some fixed period of time, like maybe 2 years. We'd pay for this out of either a corporate tax, or more fairly, just regular income tax. (Frankly, with the current system, since big corporations are subsidizing jury duty anyway, we're all paying for it via increased product prices.) By making the job term limited to a certain number of years, you'd ensure that juries would still be filled with regular people, thus continuing the idea of a "jury of your peers". Lawyers could still boot particular jurors, just as they do now, but you wouldn't have people lying and fighting to get out of jury duty. It would be a paid government job.

ALSO, there should be chocolate chip cookie snacks served by scantily clad sexy waiters and waitresses in both these scenarios.

The jury rests.

I reported to the main San Francisco courthouse today for day 2 of jury duty. On day 1 they made us fill out an 8 page form, asking our opinions on everything from health care to lawsuits in general. A few other questions were centered around the main issue of this case (which I'm not allowed to discuss, but it rhymes with as-shmestos).

Today, about 75 of us filed into the court room and the lawyers began the laborious process of reviewing our questionnaires and trying to discern whether we'd be inclined to agree with their arguments. I have no desire to be on this jury (6 weeks!!), but I won't avoid it to the point of lying in a court room. So, I had mentally prepared a slightly exaggerated version of myself, enhancing the non-civil-lawsuit friendly portions of my persona, while still staying true to my core beliefs. I was prepared to put on a nuanced performance where I proudly state my ability to be fair, yet subtlely letting them see my biases.

Of course, the morning kicked off with the usual questions about hardships. These continued throughout the day. People had jobs that wouldn't pay for 6 weeks of jury duty, or contractual obligations, and one guy didn't even get his ass all the way into his seat before he blurted out, "I'M BIPOLAR!!". For the most part, the judge lectured these people about the hardship process and then excused them from jury duty. Bipolar man had to sit his ass all the way into the seat though. He'll need to bring a doctor's note tomorrow.

What was more alarming was the jury interview process. The plaintiff's lawyer had a folksy incompetent demeanor and kept getting tripped up by legal complexities like the seating chart. Meanwhile, he ran into juror difficulties almost immediately. All went well with the first prospective juror but the 2nd one was a doctor with some vague familiarity with the issues at hand. Doctor man took a less nuanced approach to getting out of jury duty by just flat out stating that he was incapable of being fair in this trial.

What??

You can't be fair?!?! Didn't we all learn how to be fair to each other in kindergarten? I mean if you recognize your bias, isn't that the means by which you can then compensate for it? If I were in charge of the jury system, I'd take that bastard and put him in jail for contempt of court. The judge stayed out of it and we moved on.

Meanwhile, Mr. Can't Play Fair With Others had set the bar pretty high for obnoxious juror behavior. The next 22 interviewees all did their best to meet this new standard. One by one, nearly every single one of them explained how they couldn't possibly ignore their biases/morals/experiences/hatred-of-THE-man.

The judge asked some of these people, "Are you capable of accepting that the law is what I say it is?" The answer to that question was often, "No."

One guy spoke of his moral outrage against the death penalty, which was an impressive stretch in a civil trial ("I'm going to sue you...TO DEATH!"). Another prospective juror just summed up by saying to the lawyer, and I quote, "Personally, I wouldn't believe any evidence you presented."

WHAT THE HELL?!?! I go to all the effort of constructing a multilayered courtroom persona and these guys just fall back on the legal equivalent of "Nyah nyah!"?? I don't know if I'm mad because of how they're abusing the legal system or because they're better at being an asshole than I am.

Frankly, the only redeeming portion of the day was a guy named Peter Beaver. Heh. His first name is a synonym for penis and his last name is one for vagina. Oh, man, that is rich. I love a good single entendre. I giggled every time they said his name, which wasn't nearly often enough. Astonishingly, after a lifetime of what I'm sure was relentless teasing, he turned out to be one of the saner people in that courtroom.

I believe that everyone has a special gift.

Some people are really good at blogging. Others excel at creating universes. My special gift is not getting rained on while I go for a run.

I know! I couldn't believe it at first either!

I run 3 times a week. My old bones can't handle running 2 days in a row, so I have a regular schedule: Saturday morning, Tuesday at lunch, and Thursday at lunch.

Meanwhile, this March was the rainiest March ever in San Francisco. It rained for 25 of 31 days and so far we've seen rain in all 4 days of April. This has been uncommon weather.

Remarkably, in the 15 runs I've done since March 1st not a drop has landed on me. Sometimes the rain stops an hour before I start, and other times it starts mere minutes after I'm done. I haven't had to modify my schedule in the slightest. I'm pretty sure this streak goes back further than 15 runs, but there's no need to brag.

How can this be? Well, there are two schools of thought:

1) I control the weather

Although I like the simplicity of this answer, and the Keep It Simple Stupid principle dictates that the simplest answer is usually the best one, I must admit that I'm not consciously altering the weather. If I could I'd make it snow chocolate chip cookies and rain orgasms.

Thus we're left with the only other rational choice:

2) Mother Nature is sweet on me.

It's cute that she has a crush on me. I'm not sure how to reciprocate without breaking my marriage vows, but I'm looking into it.

The streak is alive at 15, my friends. What's your special gift?

(I showed up for jury duty today!)

The judge came and spoke to the prospective jurors this morning, to talk about the case and the process for picking the jury. Part of her spiel covered how one could get out of jury duty by making a case for hardship (e.g. you are the sole provider for your family. and your employer won't cover your salary during jury duty, and you are caring for your infirm mother, and blood is currently gushing out of your carotid artery onto your jury summons, and you're allergic to law). The judge explained that there was a form to fill out for hardship cases. Then she said:

Ok, so I've explained the next steps and how to apply for a hardship exemption. At this point I'll answer any questions you may have about the jury selection process. I will NOT, however, respond to any questions about the hardship process. Just fill out the form if you believe you qualify for the exemption. For some reason, even after I give this speech and tell people not to ask hardship questions, I still always get questions like, "Does THIS count as a hardship?". DON'T ASK ME THOSE QUESTIONS. I repeat, do not ask any questions about the hardship exemption. Just fill out the form. Alright, any questions?

Dumbass 1: I've got to be out of town on Fri...
Judge: That's a hardship question. Just fill out the form.
Dumbass 2: My child's day care closes at 3:00pm...
Judge: STOP! You're asking me about your hardship circumstances. Don't.
Dumbass 3: What if I have a boat that is difficult?....

This went on for about 10 minutes. It was really remarkable that the judge could give that speech and then still get inundated with questions about what constitutes a hardship. It's even more amazing that this apparently happens every time.

For the most part I'm surrounded by smart people. My family is smart, my friends are smart, and my coworkers are smart. So, going to jury duty is one of those rare times when I interact with Joe Q. Dumbass. At least I hope he's Joe Q. Dumbass and not Joe Q. Average. Same deal with going to the DMV or traffic school.

Turns out that this trial will take about six weeks. My boss and I are hoping that I don't get selected. Six weeks is too damn long to listen to lawyers. I think I'm safe though. I can't imagine that either side is going to want an opinionated and surly bastard on the jury. My unpleasant demeanor really works in my favor at times like this.

My six year-old daughter summed up the joys of springing forward for daylight saving's time nicely this morning. We were both a little punchy.

Me: We change our clocks for Daylight Saving's Time twice a year. This weekend we moved our clocks forward and we have to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. In October we'll change our clocks again, but we'll move them back. That means we'll get to stay up late and get up late.
Daisy: (disbelieving) Stay up late AND get up late?
Me: Yep. That's in October.
Daisy: (slumping back, dreaming blissfully) Oh, man, I could use a big ol' fat one of those right about now.

Amen.

Meanwhile, I write this from the shoulder-to-shoulder sardine can of a San Francisco court house. It's Jury Duty time! Actually, it's more like Line Duty or Wait Duty so far. This bites.

Weekend roundup! Wheeeeee!

Does Friday's lunch hour count as the weekend? Let's say it does. So, the crew from the advertising agency came over to videotape my response to some ad campaigns they had mocked up. As you may recall, I spent an hour with them a few weeks ago, explaining why I like to program computers (it's similar to solving puzzles) and what computer programmers are like (suave). The marketing guys took this information and used it to build a few ad campaigns for a new piece of software that they want to market to web programmers.

The first set of ads they showed me were somewhat run of the mill. The most amusing part was one ad where they tried to list a bunch of things that a computer programmer would do with his last days on earth (for reasons not worth explaining here). The list included geeky things like:

• Finish level 25 of that new first person shooter video game

This is probably not far off the mark. However, there were other items on the list such as this one:

• Archive the data on my computer hard drive

What?? If I have 24 hours left on earth, I won't be doing the dishes, flossing, or making extra copies of my computer documents and porn. I only know one person who would spend his final hours making backups, and he's not a programmer.

The next ad campaign had a bunch of word puzzles in it. The idea was that programmers would study the puzzles, and then type the answer into a field in the ad. The marketing guys stared at me eagerly while I took this in. They asked if this type of puzzle would be cool enough for me to send along to my programmer friends.

There were three major things wrong with this concept. First, it was a word puzzle. Although there are computer programmers who are word nerds (and I'm probably one), it's not the type of puzzle that compels us like programming compels us. Second, it's pretty damn rare for any web savvy person to click on interactive ads. We've all done this once and only once, maybe by clicking on a moving target or trying to win an iPod. Then we felt dirty, cleaned our mouse, and never clicked on another interactive ad again.

Third, did these people really just ask me if I wanted to send an ad to my friends? No! Not if I want to keep my friends. My friends, like my wife, barely put up with me now. If I start sending them advertisements, it's all over.

The last set of ads encouraged the user with taglines like:

• This ad is broken. Click here to fix the code.
• You can change this ad. Play with the code by clicking here.

These grabbed me. They had a great combination of programmer-friendly words: play, fix, code. The idea was that you could actually click over to a page that would put you into a simple little programming environment that would let you modify or fix the ad.

This is the best ad concept targeted at programmers that I have ever seen. I warned them that if they actually let us modify the ads, they should be prepared for the filthiest, obscenity-filled, porn-fantasy ads they could imagine. Aside from that, I thought it was brilliant. Programmers love to tinker with code.

I couldn't believe they came up with this after asking all those silly questions a few weeks ago.

Geez, all these words so far about my weekend and I'm only up to Friday at 1:00pm? Crikey. Let's go faster now.

Saturday was April Fool's Day. This is a sucky day when you have a six year-old in the house. We kept having conversations like this:

Daisy: Daddy, I'm thirsty. Can I have some juice?
Me: Sure.
Daisy: GOTCHA! April Fool's! I'm not thirsty!!
Me: Ah, very clever.
Daisy: (cackling) Did you really think I was thirsty?
Me: I did.
Daisy: Oh, I totally got you! I'm not thirsty AT ALL!
Me: (putting juice away) Ok.
Daisy: April Fool's again! I really AM thirsty now!
Me: Oh, ho ho. I sure am enjoying this.
Daisy: You really thought I wasn't thirsty?? I'm TOTALLY thirsty.
Me: I can't imagine what I was thinking.
Daisy: So, may I please have some juice?
Me: No.

Saturday night was our monthly poker game. The most amusing part was when Pablo invented a new game, as he does from time to time. This one was called Rusty Trombone and featured phallic references. Additionally, completely out of left field, all cards with prime numbers on them were wild cards, but they could only be used as other prime numbers. So, a 3 could be a 2, 3, 5 or 7 for example.

What Pablo had done here was sheer genius. He combined, poker, sexual imagery, and math, all in one tidy little game. It was one chocolate chip cookie short of being perfection. I giggled throughout the hand.

Not much happened on Sunday. We did take a nice trip to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. I saw many butterflies.