The Thinking Minority

So we saw Snakes on a Plane. It's really good. You should see it. Unless you're my sister.

Happy 30th Birthday, John!

This is hilarious.

Let the word be spread throughout the land: Davis hath poop-ed in the potty.

And let there be much rejoicing!

Sorry, had to delete the science-quiz posts because they were messing up the blog and driving me crazy...

But, for your enjoyment - crazy bike. The video starts out slow, but quickly gets impressive.

I'm halfway done with my Masters as of today!

Mrs. B forgot to mention that her nephew (my son) turned 20 months old 4 days ago. It would be a lot less impressive if he just turned 4.

My nephew can count to ten. I think that's really freaking cool.

That's all.

I just argued and won my first Supression Hearing. Kids with lots of drugs got their case dismissed because the officer went on a fishing expedition. Did the kids learn a lesson? No. Will they be back? Yes. How do I know? Frequent Flyers of Judicial Airways. Today, I have judge trials for several defendants I have yet to meet. I will talk to them for 5-10 minutes before their bench trials and then we will walk into sure, if not highly probable, losses. By this time tomorrow, I will have lost the ability to say that I am batting at 1.000. Here's to batting at 1.000!

Having not blogged in a while, I posit a blog query (queery, queerie, querie, quiery, quierie, quieree, or question).

People who say, "Once you've hit rock bottom, there is only one way to go." either voluntarily or disturbingly forgot that you can also move laterally and thus the saying, "To wallow in sorrow." In having and knowing of the two sayings, is it at all logical, acceptable and/or predictable (stepping away from legal for a while) that a perveyor of the first saying should be punched in random parts of the body for sport?

The battles in my head will soon quarter me.

Dear Charlottesville and Albemarle,

For the love of God and all that is holy, please stop hitting my f#!&ing car. PLEASE. I'm growing quite tired of getting that familiar smack in my back that says, "Contact has been achieved! Get angry now!" I have no need to enter my car into the world of social networking and no desire for it to have playdates.

Is there a problem with my car? No? Perhaps our cars had a disagreement? Not that either? Did someone mischievously slide a giant post-it that says "HIT ME" on the car? I don't see one and I'm pretty sure you won't see one either. So, the next time my car stops for one those newfangled lights, traffic, or those pesky pedestrians that cross without care, STOP YOUR DAMNED CAR BEFORE hitting mine. Those red lights in the back mean that I've stopped. C'est tout.

Osama bin Laden wants the US to release al-Zarqawi's body so al-Zarqawi can be buried. I say, let's release the body -- but only if Osama comes to pick it up in person.

It's been almost a week back from Boston and I didn't blog at all while there. That's kinda sad because I had lots of things to say.

For starters, "Boston...where you can see it, but 'you can't get there from here.'"

Quote of the week: "If you want me to stick it somewhere else, you have to tell me where to put it." - "It" is a file...a well delivered file if you ask me.

Since I hate flying so much, having DirecTV on the flight was pretty nice. Well, there was one exception. In the mddle of watching some dumb show on MTV (which pretty much means any show), the commmercial for Superman played. A plane gets blown to bits in the commmercial. Not cool. Not cool.

No one in Boston expects people to get off of the elevator when it opens. That's got to be it. I mean, why else would you try to walk into the elevator as soon as it opened. Maybe you should think about why the elevator took so long to get down to you.

If you try to order canolli at this one place, you'll get asked if you want it "for here or to go." "For here" means that you shouldn't have bothered waiting to order. You can't place the order at the counter. No, even if Rob ordered to go and is now sitting at a table, you can't do it. #$#&!@!!

In some places, there are no traffic lanes. While this could work out well for someone like me, most people from the Ville would just come to a complete stop and have a meltdown. I mean, they're always at a complete stop anyway...

There were approximately 10 ways to get to the convention center from our hotel (by major roads). The bus company failed to pass the "good route" map along to the drivers (in all fairness, these people had come in from NH and CT because the Boston drivers were on strike).

There are lots of strikes in Boston...and lots of people. It's crowded. Don't move there if you value personal space, separate dwellings, or smoky bars...wait, I liked that part.

I sang a lot. A whole lot. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday (not that anyone wanted to hear me over Train, but I couldn't help it...I was drunk) and Friday. On Friday, I got to sing with a few of the guys from Firedrill. They even let me solo a couple of songs. Pretty tight group. Every once in a while, I miss those a cappella days. Hmm, I guess that's actually the second time I sang a cappella this month.

Of course, I learned a great deal about the new version of SharePoint. Why would anyone want to learn about SharePoint? It pays the mortgage and allows you to go to cool places...where your friends live...for free. Your friends don't live there for free, but you get to go...for free. You understood the first time.

Oh and thanks again to Rob. Good times indeed.

Well, I'm only writing because it's very late and I wasn't in a sleeping mood. Now I'm in a sleeping mood...

Yeah...so...

I'm wondering if it's time to go home for the day. I mean, I can't really breathe through my nose, my computer is turning into a brick (I've had to make real efforts to post this), and one of the batteries in my wireless mouse exploded. Any thoughts?

Starting today, I propose that for every blog you read, you must leave a comment. Just so we can see that we are reading the blogs AND the comments will surely lead to dialogue. Then agan, no one but the three of reads the blog anyway, so I guess I could just im you all. eh.

Bored?

Find crazy people amusing?

Click here - it's the best website I've found about dining experiences in Charlottesville. Then click on the bright red link at the top - the conversation. It's...amusing.

Disclaimer: Fred is a friend, and is not insane.

What I Have Learned About The Internet

If you can think of it...

..there's a website about it.

So today was Judge Trial Day in front of Judge B. (or as they tell me a slow guilty plea). First a little background. If a case has made it this far, several things may or may not have happened:
1. The Public Defender's Office (hereinafter we) has had no contact with the defendant
2. The State's Attorney (The State or other fun names) will not budge on a really bad offer
3. The defendant turns down every offer from the state, or
4. The defendant swears on his/her innocence (9.9/10 a bad move)

Today, was one of those days where the only contact I had with the defendant was him telling me that he was in California and would not be in court. So, I am completely unprepared to try this case. In fact, I haven't even read the file. I hadn't read the file because I didn't know the case existed because it wasn't my case - his attorney was on vacation the week before trial. His original attorney hadn't read the file in at least a week. We were in quite the pickle, Dick.

I filed a motion to continue knowing that the judge would address the motion in court instead of on Friday (the last working day before court). He addressed the motion and denied it. Not to end there, he also ordered me out of the courtroom to prepare myself for a trial that will start at 1pm (it was 11 am). Panicked, I went back to the office and freaked the hell out! When I calmed down (30 seconds later), I met the defendant, who decided to show up after all and late to boot, pretty much told him to prepare for at least three months in jail and made him go buy clothes for court. Since my client was HUGE he could not find his size and showed up to court 15 minutes late. Being very generous not to issue a capias and be done with it all, the judge still held the trial that I was still not prepared for because I had nothing. NOTHING! Some people say they have nothing, but they have one last ditch effort or idea. I had nothing and then I had nothing more. I went to the court reporter to order a transcript and she did everything but laugh at me because, apparently, that takes weeks.

Then came the trial. It's really all a blur and I have had several beers since I started typing, but I won. Somehow in my unpreparedness, I managed to create some doubt in the Judge's mind and he found my really huge client - not guilty. In short, I won my first trial. Holy Shit! That just sunk in. Sweet!

Anyhoo, that was today. I have jail plea day tomorrow and well.....

True story and my most recent away message (shows how much YOU im me).

"What are these?" The young, eager attorney asked with a smile, "Oh these!" came the reply, "These are your cases. Your clients." With a smile on his face, the wind at his back and a song in his heart, "Do I call them?" "No, you wait for them to call you." was the retort wrapped around the snicker heard down the hall in every office and surely in the courthouse. Determined not to lose his ambition to save the poor one case at a time, "What if they don't call?" It was then that he learned three things as his stare of curiosity was met with a stare of ambiguity. The lessons: 1. He had no idea how to be an attorney; 2. he was not getting an answer; and 3. welcome to the public defender's office. As the more experienced attorney left the office, the youngling thought, "Is it too late to fail a class and stay in school another year?"

The away message before that was just weird:

They tell me that I am a defense attorney as they hand me a knife and a bag of potatoes. Don't look for logic and it will find you. Look for logic and it will hit you over the head with a bag of potatoes.

Do you have any funny, weird, interesting, a combination of the six, away messages. Share them with us for a prize!

This is in response to the 07 June posting. Sure, I could have added this to the comments, but, on the off chance that someone besides Mr., Mrs. and JB reads this blog, I would like many people to have a shot at this one.

I wouldn't necessarily say she is evil. She is telling the truth even she speaks only of a minority of the widowed group. Just as there are people who misused the funds FEMA handed out to assist Katrina victims, it will be illogical to think that all 911 victims are using their settlement monies appropriately. The problem with that argument, however, is, what is an appropriate definition for "appropriate usage?"