Jury Duty, Part 2

So I was impaneled for the trial.

It was not bad, the jusdge was really good at explaining the case and what was expected of us. You know, being on jury duty is some pretty heavy sh*t - you are deciding the fate of someone with a decision that can affect them for the rest of their life.

It was a drug case. A pretty big drug case. They have to bring in all the evidence and show it to you.

I have never seen so much pot in my life in person (alright, I really have not seen much pot at all, but this was a lot of pot!) - I am talking about compressed bales of it the size of a milk crate and heavy enough to make the floor shake when they dropped them.

Then there was the kilo of coke - wrapped in foil just like you see on TV - a brick. And the machine guna nd all the rounds of Soviet ammunition for it. This guy was ready for anything, except for the cops, I guess.

It was kind of a sad story. Hi dad had died when he was young, so his mom was working to support all her kids and he started running with a bad crowd and missing school. Eventually he dropped out and started dealing drugs. My guess is he made a decent amount of money.

The evidence was pretty strong and he was convicted of some very harsh violations. My guess is he is going away for a very long time.

I wonder how much of this could have been avoided if someone had taken him under their wing back when his dad died to try and help him through that.

Now, his life is wasted and we are paying a lot of mony to incarcerate hime for well over 20 years. That could be a lot of money put to services instead of giving him 3 squares and a bed.

Jury Duty - Part 1

I have been recently called to jury duty. My first thought was, "Ugh! What a drag!" But as I thought of it a little more, I realized that this is my responsibility to our republic and our Constitution.

I mean after all, we are coming out of the shadows of the Bush administration, where the executive branch has made a huge grab for power, and had tried to ignore the legislative branch as much as possible. This is what happens when people elect someone who is so stupid and incurious as to not be able to understand or investigate our own system of government. And Palin is another one - she cannot even name a few Supreme Court decisions that she thought were bad. HELLO! Ever hear of Plessy vs. Ferguson... Dredd Scott? Sheesh! What a frickin' idiot!

But I digress.

What other branch of government lets the People share the basic power of their position? I don't hear the Executive Branch saying, "Hey you, come on over and tell me what to do about the budget." I don't hear the Legislative Branch say, "Hey you, come on over and tell me how to vote directly." But the Judicial Branch says, "Hey you, come on over and make the decisions for us. We will provider some guidelines, and make the decision on punishment, but the actual decision of guilt or innocence is up to you." That' s some pretty heady shit there.

So I did not try to weasel out too much, and I was pleased to get in on a short trial - a couple of days.

More on the duty, next time.

JetMan - A real Buck Rogers

Have you heard about Jet Man? The guy who flew across the English Channel with wings and a jet-pack strapped to his back? The guy is amazing. He literally soars through the air and steers with his head and shoulders!

I guess Buck Rogers is showing my age... for you kiddies out there, he is a real life Buzz Lightyear - with wings that pop open and jets on his back and little flashing lights. He is only missing the wrist-mounted laser (little blinky light thingie).

Anyway, this former pilot has built a jet pack that burns kerosene and has these carbon fiber wings on his back that lets him fly like a superhero. He has flown over the Alps (great video on his site) and recently flew across the English channel in under 10 minutes. I watched it on TV and it was incredible.

The called him a real-life Daedalus (thank goodness he was not Icarus), and he was amazing. Now I don't think this is ready for prime-time, as he has to jump out of a plane to get started and use a parachute to get on the ground, but it is a very interesting and inspiring feat.

I don't think we will be seeing people flying to work anytime soon - and the result of a collision would usually be fatal, but I would not be surprised to see this in a Bond movie soon.

Man, this was just too cool!

Flash Game - Warfare 1917

So I was introduced to another Flash Game - "Warfare 1917." It is a Flash Game where you manage troops during WWI (either German or English) and try to take over trenches and territory and eventually win the war. It is by the same guys that made "The Last Stand" and "The Last Stand 2" - 2 other really good zombie shooting games. I'll review them soon.

Warfare 1917 lets you use your resources to build different types of troops with different strengths and weaknesses, and different build times You also can direct artillery fire (and eventually tanks) in later scenarios. Like "The Last Stand 1 & 2" a bug part of this is managing your resources. But this game also includes some tactical needs like what troops to send and when.

There definitely is some strategy, as I have been able to improve my push to end the war, going from 9 wins and 27 losses, to 9 wins and 6 losses and finally to 9 wins and no losses.

It is amazing what can be done in Flash nowadays.

Now you can't play this in one sitting unless you have an hour or so, but if you play it at Armorgames, it lays a cookie on your browser and saves your progress.

So if you are interested in a bit more than a "twitch shoot 'em up," give Warfare 1917 a try, I think you might enjoy it.

Have fun!

Lyman

A Cure for Disney-itis

Are you like me? The constant barrage of manufactured teeny-bopper musicians makes you want to puke? Do Hanna Montana and Hillary Duff and the Gang from High School Musical fronting generic bands make your skin crawl, but your daughters scream for more?

Well, I have a solution for you.

We went to the Jersey Shore for a weekend and caught an Irish festival that was in itself pretty crappy - lots of expensive, cruddy trinkets and Paddy Bands singing about getting drunk. But on a stage off to the side I heard a very nice little band starting up, so I grabbed the kids and went over. It turned out to be a band made up of sisters, all under 15, and playing their instruments (more than one at times) and singing.

They were the Raining Hearts, from Pennsylvania. And they were sincere and talented and excellent role models of hard working kids doing something that it looks like they love. They play traditional songs and write their own Irish-pop songs and are entirely captivating.

Their self titled CD - Raining Hearts - is only $10 - but only 7 songs, and does not do justice to their infectious tunes, but it is a good start, and a nice alternative to that Disney crap, especially for kids. Give it a shot if you want to try something in the car for the kids to listen to. Their CD is in heavy rotation in our household.

I am sure that there are other kid bands out there that are worth hearing, so give it a try and see what you can find. Let me know if you find something you like.

Enjoy!

The Simple things - radio?

There is a lot of talk about this being the digital generation. I'm not so sure. I think that the generation that grew up in the 80's is the real digital generation - they built the thing - the current group only consumes it. But that is a topic for another blog. I want to talk about the importance of analog media.

Like radio...

...and I am not talking about internet radio, or satellite radio or HD Radio. Just plain old Marconi radio.

I did 2 things recently that relate to that. I wanted to listen to the radio on my big stereo, and I wanted to listen to radio in the dining area and kitchen where I occasionally work. So I went to Radio Shack and bought one of their radio/TV antennas and attached it to the home stereo. It sounds pretty good! I can even pick up the local commercial classical music station that is rather weak. But the really impressive occurrence is that my kids have started listening to the radio stations and discovering new music.

Now my kids mostly listen to CDs/MP3s, or their Mp3 Player, or Internet radio or even tunes on YouTube, but this was new for them again and somewhat exciting.

You would have thought that we had gotten cable, the way they spent time in the family room. The only thing that they complained about is the number of commercials. Who doesn't? Except for listening to NPR, I guess commercials are the norm. But they have discovered music and groups that they never would have heard.

The other thing I did was buy one of those table radios from Cambridge Soundworks. It sounds really good, has a decent antenna, and even has a little remote. Not sure if it sounds better than Bose, but it does the trick for a lot less. Again, it is great to listen to music while I work, and we even have a little nice music while we eat dinner.

All in all, adding music to the home environment has been a pleasant improvement to the TV, or kids walking around with phones on their ears or whatever.

I recommend trying to add some nice music to your environment and seeing what happens.

Let me know your experiences.