Sorry! I unplugged my DSL router as I left for jury duty today.

The King County Courthouse heating system was out, and the outdoor temperature is in the twenties. I’m still cold.

I was impaneled and dismissed on a burglary case. One down, one to go, unless they keep me.

There’s some interesting news afoot I haven’t been able to tackle today, having spent it finishing the DVD authoring on a project I initiated in September (my test burn is being prepped right this second – cross your fingers for me). I expect to develop it tomorrow, however, although I will be embarking, in theory, on a new experience tomorrow at 8 am – jury duty!

As I examined my papers I realized I hadn’t read them closely and that I was actually required to send a part of them back promptly upon receipt, which I did not do. This makes me uneasy, as not carefully reading missives from the court system can easily result in an unwanted familiarity with the inside of a jail cell.

I can’t imagine that a responsible prosecutor would ever let me sit on a jury, though, so I don’t expect to be there long. Mind you, I think it would be interesting and I certainly don’t regard the opportunity as a hassle or interruption of other, more important things – I simply doubt that my beliefs make me welcome in a courtroom.

I thought about going out of my way to become even more unwelcome, but have deferred the research. Maybe later. My goal is not to be dismissed, it’s to be honest and participate responsibly. I’m quite sure my definition of responsibility is idiosyncratic, however.

I think the nub of the matter for me is my skepticism concerning how seriously I should take the idea of testimony under oath – I just can’t imagine that it matters, at all, and it seems likely to me that every person one might observe giving testimony is whole heartedly lying in order to meet their own personal or professional goals. The idea applies equally to evidence, frankly; and so I’m left with an enjoyable pickle of epistemology: how can we find the truth? Is there such a thing?

If I’m not dismissed I look forward to thinking about these things seriously again, and since statistically it’s most likely that I’ll get assigned to some minor and relatively fast-moving event, I don’t expect to resolve the challenges. But I welcome the opportunity to consider these questions.

still snowing, but slacked.

As I type, it’s snowing heavily with about an inch on the ground.

The flakes are dense in the air and swirling but the night is windless.

Sure is quiet out there.

Rumor has it that Ken Goldstein products may put in a return appearance.

In other news, I applied for seventy-nine jobs today. Wonder if I’ll get a call back.

Hollywood: Saturday evening, December 2003. Tim Curry, Musso & Franks.

Seattle: Monday evening, a week later. Barton Fink, IFC.

Just a quick pointer to the Tablet-posted ROTK review, for comparison. My Ink and Pixels column catches up with Pete Bagge, and I review a couple other flicks on that ROTK link, too.

Looking about elsewhere, I note that Maciej has brought over some coverage from the other side of the pond of our recent sleepless nights, and that Paul F. has combed his files for a bit of self-examination of the ego-boosting variety, something we should applaud in his case. Go Paul!

For my part, I could tell you about the torrential downpour that killed campers in California as viewed from the Pacific Coast Highway between San Diego and Los Angeles at 11:30 at night. Or I could tell you about seeing a certain New Jersey based blogger in the City of Angels, much like a certain Sienfeld episode, except there was no comedy and it wasn’t on TV.

Confidential to the TV producer who did lunch with us:

There is nothing “creepy” about either the Ken Goldstein Project or the neglected musical comedy sensation Kensapoppin’, and I’ll have you know there are other interested parties seeking face time, so… what I’m saying here is if you want an option, now’s the time to act. “Creepy”! Mother Goldstein never mentioned “creepy”! But if you feel like we need to play up the whole stalker angle, well, I can see how that might appeal to a certain demographic base, yadda yadda yadda…

Or I could even tell you about scoring last minute tenth-row seats to see the LA production of The Producers with Jason Alexander and Martin Short, where it became apparent that Mr. Alexander is uniquely qualified to play the lead role in any potential revivals of Kensapoppin’ for stage or screen.

But if I did, I’d ruin my material.

Last night we met friends at the new-to-us Norm’s for dinner and a couple beers. I had the fish and chips, which was unspectacular and served on, um, potato chips. The chips are made on the premises and were not greasy in the least, so light as to be fluffy; but goddammit, fish-and-chips is NOT fish and potato chips; and the serving was only about half what I was expecting and certainly not enough for an average-sized adult. Otherwise, it was nice to see that there’s a plain-folks type pub in Fremont yet, resisting the tides of money and hooting frat boys that have otherwise adversely affected the texture of the place. Viv had meatloaf which was both a generous serving and very tasty.

After dinner Viv and I walked around a bit and dropped into the entirely empty (one table of customers on a Friday night: bad sign) Blue C Sushi, attracted by the unpopulated expanse of the upstairs bar for a drink. We had some freaky thing that was served at $5.00 ‘a pair’ and involved a blue liquid. I counted eight or nine employees to six customers. The P-I notes that the place is owned by ex-dot-com peeps. Hmmmm.

On the good side of things, the plate prices were extremely moderate, and I noted dishes rotated on the kaiten belt with regularity (although I shudder to think of the wastage that must have happened that night).

I noticed a witty take on the famous Hokusai print of high seas with Mount Fuji in the background, and peering through the murk, made out the signature: ‘kozyndan,’ it said, which amused me because I knew their work. Uprisings is the painting, and it was used as a Giant Robot cover.

After that we were headed back to the car and decided to wander around the cavernous PCC, where I flashed on the idea of a midnight picnic in 40 degree cold by the banks of the beautiful Ship Canal, one thing that Fremont is likely to always have going for it. We got olives, hummus, pita bread, and then Viv scored an awesome find: persimmon pudding, one of two or three foods that are traditional in my homeland of Southern Indiana, persimmon trees being native to the region.

Viv was doubtful about the whole concept (fear of cold being endemic to her tropical peoples) but had a wonderful time complaining about the chill and wondering why we couldn’t sit in the car, concerns I had an equally wonderful time ignoring while feeding her and looking at the lights reflecting on the canal.

There was a real meat-market vibe to most of the bars we strolled by that night – it’s puzzling that the sushi place isn’t drawing the hooting young people in backward baseball caps. Overall, while still disheartened by the changes to Fremont, it was a good night and a pleasant stroll.

The Museum of Flight in Seattle: Concorde

Dr. Xacto and I went to the Museum of Flight in hopes of seeing the Concorde conclude its’ final flight this afternoon – unfortunately the screening I was at earlier ran a bit late and it threw our schedule – we missed the actual landing itself.

We did get there in time to be deafened by the engines as it was taxied in to position. Then we gate-crashed the Museum (I’m a member so I was only gate-crashing a VIP deal) and checked out the new wing, which currently features an exhibit focused on the Wright Brothers.

The rest of the wing will feature the WWI and II fighters the Museum acquired a few years ago from the Champlin collection in Arizona – these planes are set to go on display next June. We ere able to peek at a P-47 Ligthting and a P-40 in Flying Tigers colors through a hole in a wall, and I spotted a Fokker E.V, a high-wing monoplane deriving from the D.VII, but, as I recall, using a non-fabric, all-metal wing, hanging over a stairway.

It was kind of fun to be walking around half-wondering if we were going to get the boot. I guess I felt a sufficient sense of confidence that it was simply never an issue.

Right on schedule, our winter rain arrived.

It’s chilly and damp and dark and the clouds and fog are like a blanket that inverts the usual function – pull it up around your shoulders as your body heat is sucked away from you.

But by god it beats the snows of my childhood.

For a couple days before the wet arrived, Seattle had a fall that smelled like California and looked like Indiana, though. It was damn pretty.

Continuing my execrable habit of multi-subject posts, I should note that I’m nearly done with Mark Twain’s first book (I think – gonna have to dig up a comprehensive biblio and annotations one of these maundering days), Roughing It, which covers his early years in the rough-and-tumble world of Virginia City, Nevada during the Civil War.

There was a war on, but for “Virginia”, it was the height of boom times, and Twain recounts stories – such as freely-given stock in token of oh, simple affection or as a marker of regard and social utility – that echo loudly in the dot-com vet’s ears. The whole sequence of chapters reflecting on his experience of a boom town whose inflationary economics far outstripped that seen here a few years ago is recommended reading, and having come across it just as the wave of release-based local adulation crests about the shoulders of Jonathan Raban for Waxwings was something I chucklingly savored.

Another local author, David Guterson, who wrote Snow Falling on Cedars back in the day and then later East of the Mountains (which I prefer – it casts the Dry Side as the Peloponnese in a sort of pocket Odyssey that captures something of the beauty and solitude of my father’s birthgrounds) also has a new book out. It’s called Our Lady of the Mountains and concerns, if I have it right, a miraculous apparition of the Virgin, again on the Wet Side but this time Out There.

Sounds like a fine topic: what on Earth did you think Bigfoot was, anyway? Chopped liver?

It is dinnertime. Exeunt.