A Dumb Blog Post For December 2015

December 7, 2015

Before blogging was even a term, I was running personal websites for years that pretty much were blogs. I coded everything by hand (like I do with this site), but then I started using a Wordpress installation on a paid server with a domain name. Then, as my readers dwindled I gave up on paying for having a site. I moved from Blogger to Tumblr and back and forth for awhile. I got to the point where I was just doing linkfarms, which are just links to news stories with a few sentences of commentary. But then I realized that nobody was really reading it anymore. Then I also realized that Twitter fulfilled my needs to share my dumbass thoughts every day, and even now I still use that for the majority of my online output.

Still, every so often I get the urge to write something more longform than 140 characters, and that's where blog-type posts like this one here on this site come from. I know nobody has an attention span anymore, and that if you've made it to this paragraph you probably feel like you deserve some sort of trophy.

So, what sort of stuff is on my mind?

I've got jury duty next month. I live in what I call "The Armpit Of New England", so there are always lots of criminal trials going. I read the local news every day, so I also firmly believe that 99% of the people there did whatever it that they were accused of doing.

I got my notice last month, but I forgot about the notice and never filled it out and sent it in. They sent me another one, so this time I just registered online. Now I have to pray for a blizzard. I'm tempted to show up in something like a tinfoil cape and hope they think I'm crazy and send me home.

I also thought about doing something like putting my hands in my front pants pocket and moving them up and down, while asking them if they have any sex offender cases while licking my lips. While that might be hilarious (at least it is to me) and get me bounced out of jury duty, it might also get me a nice contempt charge or worse. Even if I don't wind up on a case, I have to waste a day sitting around the courthouse. Very annoying.

I've always wondered what stops somebody from paying somebody else to go to jury duty for you. In all times I've been called in for jury duty, I've never once been asked for ID. I'm not willing to risk it, but to me that sounds like something that would be a convenient service or a good job for somebody who's bored.

Christmas is a few weeks away, but I can't really muster much enthusiasm. I'm presently busting my ass to make sure I have money to buy presents and cover my regular expenses. I don't even know what I want for Christmas. Most of the stuff I want is too expensive to be a practical request when I'm asked what I want. Movies or games used to be easy filler gifts, but I've got pretty much all digital for both. I'll probably just wind up asking for more hard drives and/or Steam gift cards.

We've also reached that time of year where all of the shows go on break until around the middle of January. I've got a massive backlog of shows and movies to watch, literally thousands of episodes and hundreds of movies. I doubt I'll get around to watching any of them. Same goes for games, although I have been playing Dead Rising 2: Off The Record (PC) lately.