Jury duty

First day of jury duty...pretty much the perfect example of hurry up and wait. There we were, me and two hundred of my closest friends. From what I heard, I could very well have been the only carbon based life form who wanted to be there. Even the judge whom I eventually saw, made a joke about how he was going to try to get out of jury duty later this month. This, just minutes after he gave us the speech about how important jury duty is to maintaining democracy and decency in the world.

Great perk to jury duty: all jurors get into MOCA for free.

P.S. Federer won the U.S. Open.

The ice house

Once again, it's 11:30 PM. My eyelids are fighting a losing battle with gravity and I find myself typing words just so I may keep a promise to myself...blog everyday. The disappointing aspect to this trend is that I have had interesting topics to write about, I'm just too tired to give them literary justice.

• Saw Jim at the Ice House. So grateful he was funny. I was somewhat concerned that he might flat out suck. And then what do you say? You can't lie, because he's a friend. So you can make the truth a little fuzzy or tell the truth as you see it. Like I said, fortunately he was damn funny. Most notably, especially compared to most of the other comics at the Ice House Annex, his delivery was naturally casual and not at all forced.
• Had a great experience with yoga today. Really let go and eased into the stretches.
• First Sunday of NFL football.
• Had a great time with Kristen and Sam at the Ice House, Robin and Katy Adams were also there and a guy who is friends with Robin who I've met several times and with whom I have had a couple of meaningful conversations and yet can't remember his name.
• Left my keys at the Ice House. Had to return at 11:00 to retrieve them.
• I begin jury duty tomorrow.
• Watched the final two episodes of The Pilot Season.

September Eleventh

• I guess the best description of the way today (September 11th) felt is that it feels as though we've always lived in a "post 9-11 world".
• I heard Dick Cheney say that if Kerry is elected America will be attacked again by terrorist forces. Ugh. This coming from the administration whose very life force is fear-based. This from the administration that, for the past three years, has come before us and declared that another attack on America is "inevitable". Not probable, but inevitable. Now, all of a sudden, Bush is the only man who can keep us safe?
  
• Tim and I spent most of the night watching the Dodgers beat the Cardinals, the Trojans beat Colorado State, and a show called The Pilot Season starring the delightful Sara Silverman. Funny stuff...reminiscent of the British show The Office.

more musings...

I don't have much to say, yet I wanted to get something down so that it may be three days in a row that I get words written.

Dodgers won today against the juggernaut Cardinals. Giants lost to the dweller-living Diamondbacks. The good guys are six games ahead. Funny thing is that in talking to Tim he casually drops the comment,"...well, if Finley can keep up the good work, we might have a chance."

Steve went three for three with a homerun, two RBI, and two runs scored. Nice call, Cutback.

I hate to admit it, but I watched Miami Slice again. This time, watching on Tim's TiVo, I was able to watch the plastic surgery show juxtaposed with Insomniac with Dave Atell. But more on that later...

Tomorrow is September 11th, the third year anniversary of the attacks and the fifth anniversary of my marriage to Nicole. Kind of strange to think we've now been divorced/seperated longer than we were married. Oh well. What a long strange trip...

One thousand dead and Federer moves on...

Another interesting day at the US Open...sort of. Roger Federer and Andre Agassi battled each other and gale force winds more fitting of The America's Cup. To be honest, I haven't a clue what actually constitutes a gale force, but these winds had to be close to gale...I think. But semantics aside, it was quite a lot of fun watching these two guys play the equivalent of an ecological miniature golf course on the court. Bending the game and the status quo of professional tennis. Federer won.

Kristin and I attended a candle-light vigil to honor the 1,000 American soldiers and over 10,000 Iraqi civilians who have died over the course of the last year and a half. Gratefully, the gathering remained apolitical despite one aggressive woman's attempt to turn this solemn and sober event into a Kerry rally (she was respectively addressed). There is a time and a place for politics...this wasn't it.

Earlier today, I visited www.nytimes.com to see their display of 1,000 pictures of the 1,000 dead American soldiers. Chilling and heavyhearted. Two thousand eyes of the dead. One thousand lives cut dramatically short.

About two thirds of the pictures were of the soldiers in various uniforms, casual and dress. These affected my spirit, but not nearly as dramatically as those pictures of dead soldiers in civilian garb. Some wore tuxedos (obviously a prom picture), others wore Red Sox hats and goofy smiles, while yet another soldier kissed a loved one. These images of dead soldiers in happier and more innocent times caught me off guard. Show me a picture of a steel-faced marine cutting the camera lense with his glare and the idea of death seems to be part of the equation. Show me that same soldier two years ago, in high school, fearing the future because it seems so expansive but still laughing and enjoying the privileges of youth...death isn't part of that equation. Yet sadly, today's newspaper reports otherwise. Cheers...

Modern musings about tennis and America

Several things caught my attention today...
I finally got around to watching the tape of the Jennifer Capriatti-Serena Williams match. The one which caused all the controversy about bad calls going against Serena. Yes, Serena got robbed and the umpire should be reprimanded, but you know, that's part of the game. The human element is, in my opinion, the essence of sport. So that aside, what really got under my skin, was the post-match interview with Jennifer Capriatti. It was one of those interviews done for both the benefit of the TV audience and those in the Arthur Ashe Stadium. The walking sack of doorknobs who asked the questions actually asked Jennifer about the missed calls. What is she supposed to say? "Yeah, the umpire blew it, I didn't deserve to win, I'm a fraud, someone should be fired, off with their heads, I'm so ashamed..." First of all, this barely qualifies as a story and if it is, she is the last person who should have to weigh in on the debate. The cheesepuff who asked the question should be reprimanded as well as the umpire. Fortunately, she handled it with grace, self-deprecation, and a little bit of humor. The crowd booed, but it felt as though they were booing the situation and not her comments.

I have to admire Jim Courrier for his observations. Not so much his insight, but he had the presence of mind to treat the English language with the respect it deserves. I'm getting so tired of hyperbole, I can't tell ya. In regards to the Serena controversy, he prefaced the conclusion of his remarks by saying, "In light of the recent events on the front pages (the Russian school tragedy and the devastating hurricane in Miami) I'm not going to call this a travesty or tragedy...." Seriously, thank you Jim.

I got home from the gym, turned on the radio to hear the end of the Dodger game. And that's what I got. No joke, these were the first words I heard, "...and the ball bounces off the wall, Izturis rounds third, the Dodgers win." Perfect. Dodgers six, Diamondbacks five.

I saw Pamela Anderson on Ellen's show today. Apparently she named her children Dylan and Brandon. Weren't those the two thirty-year old teenagers on Beverly Hills 91210? Ugghhhh...

Speaking of fake breasts...I caught a few moments of this new show on Bravo called "Miami Slice", about plastic surgeons and their patients in South Beach. This one surgeon is taking in a show at the local strip club. I'm guessing many of the ladies "working" that night had previously spent an afternoon on his table, under his knife. And boy was he proud. He even went so far as to comment on how good it made him feel to see how he had made an impression on their lives, for the better. To hear him talk, to hear the tone in his voice and to see the slight smile on his face,you would think he had just spent the summer helping start up a midnight basketball league or washing the feet of lepers. Not to say that plastic surgery doesn't have the capability to dramatically improve lives (I'm thinking of women who've had mastectomies or burn victims), but Jesus Christ...let's put things in perspective America. Or not.