So yesterday one of the things I got in the mail was a summons to jury duty. I have been called to be a prospective juror in the circuit court here. Circuit court, in this state's system, is the higher trial court, the one that deals with large lawsuits or felony charges. So I could, conceivably, be the juror on a case that could lead to the death penalty.

I'm a little torn about how I feel. For selfish reasons, I don't want to be stuck on a trial that could run weeks. But I'd also like to really get that inside view of the justice system that I couldn't get any other way (well, without being a defendant, which I really don't want to happen.) So we'll see what happens. I'm not going to dodge this in any way. I'll keep you all posted.

So I'm at work a couple of days ago, and I have to, you know, take care of a basic bodily function related to the removal of wastes. My office building has a rather small men's room; there's a urinal, and two stalls. One stall is much bigger than the other, because it's the handicapped (handicapable?) stall with the handbars and all the stuff you need if you're in a wheelchair. I will admit to my shame that I usually go there if my needs require a sitting posture, because the other one is so tiny because that one's so big it's clausturphobic.

But, anyway, on this occasion, I'm at the urinal. I didn't know anyone else was in there until I heard someone speak. I didn't think they were talking to me, and I wondered if they were talking to themselves. I then realized that they were talking on a cell phone, making some sort of travel arrangements. As he was taking a dump.

You know, call me crazy, but I kind of like people to be done shitting before they do business with me. I'll wait.

I don't think it's anyone I work with. The other office on my floor is actually sort of a office full of political hacks who work for the horrible governor of this state. I will limit my political cheap shots to the Current Events board, but guess what party they belong to.

So yesterday I had to go down to my old hometown to take care of some buisness. While I was there, I saw a church with a big clock on the front that said "TIME TO OBEY GOD."

However, the clock itself had stopped.

There may or may not be some sort of symbolism here. I leave it to you to decide.

I heard a story on the news today that just made me feel such sympathy for some poor dude out there. It was about a gas station being robbed at about 5 am this morning. There was one employee in the store, and he was cleaning the bathroom when the robber came. The robber locked him in a storage room.

I mean, I can just see some poor son of a bitch, cleaning out a shitter at 5 in the morning, hating your life, hating your fucking job, and the next thing you know, someone's pointing a damn gun at you and demanding money.

So make that your little thankful thought for the day: at least I'm not cleaning out a shitter at 5 in the morning, getting robbed by some shitheel wanting money for crank.

Unless you are cleaning a shitter at 5 in the morning. Then rest assured I feel for you.

This is just fucking pathetic.

Yesterday, I went to my friendly neighborhood drug store to pick up some allergy medicine. When I got there, I saw that the allergy medicine wasn't on the shelves anymore. Instead, they have a wall full of little cards with pictures of the various brands of allergy pills. You have to take one, and then take it to the pharmacist for him or her to get the medicine for you.

This is a new law that's just gone into force here to try to make it harder to gather the ingredients (in this case, the pseudoephedrine in the allergy medicine I was getting) to make methamphetamine. So because some hillbilly in BFE got the bright idea to try to make a few bucks by selling meth to his equally chromosome-damaged buddies, we have to go through this bullshit. It was annoying to me, and I'm sure it has to annoy the hell out of the pharmacists.

So here's my note to meth makers: I hope you get your ass blown up. I want to watch you running around with your mullet in flames. You've turned Appalachia into a horribly violent hellhole, and you're annoying everyone else. Just go the fuck away.

So apparently the credit card I was using to pay for this account expired, so my account went gray for several hours.

Relax, here I am. You can stop your wailing and moaning now.

Because I'm sure there was much panic and consternation if anyone saw my name in gray.

So today when I got home from work, I found a smallish box waiting for me. I opened it, not sure at all what was inside it.

What was inside it was a 6 GB Mini IPod. Apparently, I was one of the lucky winners in the Pepsi contest, where you entered in the code from the bottle caps.

I already own one, so I gave it to my sister as a belated birthday present. I should have pretended that I paid the $250 for it.

For the past two weeks, the sign in front of the Wal-Mart closest to me has read "ALWAYS LOW PRICES, ALWAYS MAL-WART."

This amuses me greatly.

So I'm putting something out to sell on EBay. It's this Dell Digital Jukebox I have. It's a good thing, in good condition, but I just never use it anymore. I usually either listen to my XM radio (Fred 44 or Fine Tuning 76, often), or play CD's on my stereo. I am thinking of going to an Ipod eventually.

Anyway, to totally whore out my journal entry, here it is: shit to buy. I'm a bit nervous about the thing because I've never really sold anything on EBay, and I'm just afraid I'm gonna get ripped off. I figure if you're smart enough to read my journal, you're a good person, so bid on it, won't ya?

So I got home from work today to find a letter addressed to me from...the United States District Attorney's Office.

I had a little feeling of a mini freak-out when I saw it. I couldn't imagine what it could be. Had the RIAA finally figured out I'd been downloading stuff? Was I being punished for giving the Dean campaign $20? What was going on?

I opened it, and read a letter saying that under my rights as a "victim of crime", I had the right to be informed that a certain person was being arraigned on such-and-such date for the crime of mail fraud. I couldn't remember what it was at first, then I remembered that when I moved out of my shitty apartment last year, the postal service (not the synth-pop band, the USPS) had fucked up my change of address, and my mail had fallen into the hands of some horrid person who'd decided to take my credit card out for a ride. I got off relatively lucky: all she got out of me was $50 for a cell phone bill. My roommate had a much rougher time: her credit cards were taken for an approximately $5,000 ride. Luckily, everyone's bills have been wiped clean, and this bitch is going to the slammer. And it won't be a sexy slammer where babes in lingerie have fights in the showers either. No, this will be less like a prison movie on Cinemax, and more like the one on HBO.