Happy Shiny Clean Birthday to me!

It's my birthday today and I am celebrating by taking today (and tomorrow) off from work. My agenda for today is very full:

1) make french toast for breakfast (done)

2) clean the bathroom and scrub the soap scum off the tub walls (done)

3) spend some time ambling aimlessly around the internet (in the process)

4) take my laptop in to get the damn iPhoto fixed

5) go to the dermatologist and see what this strange irritation on my lip is all about

6) go running

7) make cupcakes

8) enjoy said cupcakes along with some champagne and a few of my best buds

Like I said, this is a very ambitious agenda but the reward at the end should provide enough incentive.

I love my Mac, but...

Every time I open my Powerbook G4 and turn it on, I think, "this is the sexiest computer anywhere." You can't dispute that. I had PC's for years and never did I ever think, "wow, I love my computer." There are so many things I absolutely adore about my Mac. One of the most important for me (because I write so much) is the touch of the keyboard. I tried for years to find a PC that had the same touch but was never able to. And then there's all the other neat, intuitive stuff it does. HOWEVER...of late my dear little Powerbook has developed a few quirks and glitches that are really starting to piss me off. For instance, my iPhoto won't open any more. The consensus is, there's a corrupt file in there, but I can't get to it to remove it. Then there's the whole browser issue. For some weird reason, my Firefox disappeared and refuses to launch any more. And Safari has a whole buttload of issues. One big one is that a lot of the functions on Blogger aren't functional through Safari. So I can't embed video clips and stuff in here. I'm thinking it's time for a brainwashing. Time to take this puppy in for servicing. I'm wincing in advance, though, because my extended warranty ran out over a year ago. So I'm probably looking at $150 or $200 to get it back into shape. Of course that's a whole lot less than a new computer, isn't it? Sigh. I wish this techno revolution would be over already and they started building these things to last for 10 years. Or at least offer longer warranties.

My Good Deed of the Week

Yesterday I participated in an activity that pretty much everyone would say was a commendable thing to do. I was in the annual walk against breast cancer that takes place in the city. There were probably about 50,000 other people who did it too so that in itself was not so unusual. A co-worker whose aunt and grandma had breast cancer organized the team. It's a very personal cause for her. I love to walk and I figured I could help raise a few bucks so I signed on. I did in fact raise $100, not much but still worthwhile. But here's where I get to the part that confuses me. The way the event was set up, it wasn't a "thon" type of thing where people pledge so much per mile, or whatever. We were just soliciting donations and then we were walking in this non-competitive event. It really was just a walk in the park. In fact, it really wouldn't have mattered whether I walked or not. I can understand cancer survivors and their families walking - there's a whole emotional and spiritual component to it for them. But for the rest of us, the walk was really beside the point. Okay, it was a nice communal event, but I didn't speak to anyone other than the folks on my team. And I hate team spirit, so the cheerleaders along the side of the road jumping up and down and waving their pompoms didn't do anything for me. And I especially hated all the over-caffeinated volunteers who would scream encouragement in my ear as I walked by. Seriously, I thought I was going to bust an eardrum. I'm not really a scrooge, truly I'm not. And I was very happy to be able to raise a little money to help find a cure for breast cancer. But I still don't understand the walk thing. However, directly after it was finished, I met a friend for brunch and downed a few mimosas without feeling the least bit guilty.

Jury Duty, Part II

After a sextuple-murder case, pretty much anything else is gonna seem like small potatoes. We all got called in for selection on an assault case which seemed to involve a bunch of drunk guys at 4:30 in the morning. Apparently one guy was being chased or threatened by several other guys and he took a baseball bat to somebody's head, or other body part. It all seemed to boil down to a he-said-he-said. I didn't even get called into the jury box before they picked enough people. At that point it was 5:05 on the Friday before a 3-day weekend and the judge just excused us all. I have now gotten called for jury duty three times and have never been picked to serve on a jury. However, I can hold my head high knowing I fulfilled my civic duty. It's kind of like getting a colonoscopy I guess -- you don't really want to do it but you know you should, and after it's done you're relieved cause you know you don't have to do it again for a long time.

Hey, it's just like Law and Order -- only real!

The jurors filed slowly into the courtroom, looking around as they moved up the center aisle. Fill this row, then that row, then this one...until they were all seated. The men at the lawyers' tables looked them over, sizing them up, like lions deciding which wildebeests to cut out of the herd. Then the judge addressed the filled courtroom.

"The case before us is a murder case. There are actually six separate indictments for six separate murders. The prosecutors will allege that the defendant committed these six murders at six separate times. Five of these were murders for hire; the other murder was committed in the course of a robbery."

And I'm thinking "ooh, this is just like Law and Order, only I'm not watching it on TV, I'm sitting in the courtroom! The judge is talking to me (along with about 80 or so other people). But then he got to the part where he said that since it's such a complex case, he expected it to last at least 20 trial days, spread out over the period of about 6 weeks or so. And since it would so long, anyone who would not be able to commit that much time could excuse themselves. Sadly I got up and left the courtroom. So did lots of other people. But a whole bunch stayed. Didn't any of the work, I wondered. But for whatever reasons, they got the chance to be on the jury of that very cool case. The rest of us went back to the jury room. But no more cases were coming down yesterday so we all got excused by noon.

Normally it would be three days in a row. But today is the Jewish holiday, so we didn't go in. And then Monday is Columbus Day so there's no court then. So my three days are being spread out over almost a week. Of course if I get picked on a jury, it will be longer. But there's no chance that there will be another case as interesting as yesterday's.