Dan Bornstein

8:55am: It looks like the line of people has dwindled down. Nice Check-in Lady is making an announcement over the loudspeaker: "Thank you for fulfilling your civic duty. The bathrooms are ... Payphones are located ... You will get a break as the schedule permits. ... Right now pre-trial proceedings are happening upstairs. You may get called ... Keep your summons with you. The best way to know your juror badge number is by keeping your summons, as it is printed on it. ... If you are assigned to a courtroom ... You are not reimbursed for parking ... By state law, jurors are not paid for the first day of service. ... If you are a government employee, state law says that ... If you need to leave the assembly room, please check in with us before you leave ... It is very important that everyone has checked in. ... Shortly we will be playing a video ... Safety is our primary concern. Should you be in need of any ... Should an emergency arise ... Thank you for your attention. Now at this time if you are a government employee, please raise your hand and ... "

9:03am: Several helpers are handing out special questionnaires to the government employees.

7:50am: Milling about at the front entrance, because it's EMPLOYEES ONLY until 8am. I didn't actually have to show up until 8:30am, but I decided to walk from my place, and I wanted to leave plenty of leeway. In fact it only took about 20 minutes, and that included a wrong turn and so an extra couple blocks' worth of walking.

8:00am: Walk through a metal detector. Put my laptop bag through an x-ray scanner. I also put my keys, wallet, and hiptop in the bag so as to avoid the hassle of emptying my pockets into a little bin and having some security dude poke at them.

8:02am: Check out the lovely bathrooms.

8:05am: Wander downstairs to the jury waiting area. Stand in a short line to hand the nice lady my papers. Got my laptop out and found out that -- as I had in fact been told -- the building has free 802.11. It is, unfortunately though, not exactly the zippiest connection on earth. I've been trying to use my remote screen(1) session, but it'll be responsive and interactive for only about a minute at a time, and then there will be a delay of between a few seconds to a minute or so. So I've been doing a lot of blind typeahead (perhaps to the annoyance of my irc buddies).

I saw the new Harry Potter movie on Friday. I'd never read any of the books nor had I seen any of the previous movies. The flick had a few fun moments, but too often I found myself having to re-suspend disbelief when something happened that didn't make sense given the baseline rules of the universe as they seemed to exist mere moments before. Eh, whatever.

I happened to be in Lincoln City, Oregon yesterday morning at an interesting-looking cafe and chocolatier that prominently advertised "free wifi." At about 9am, the table next to me got totally crowded. People were throwing dollar bills on the table and getting quarters ready to be flipped. I had no idea what was going on, but a friendly stranger invited me to play, so I did. The game was a simple game of chance, but it was one I'd never heard of before, and I have no idea how widespread it is. Apparently it's been played at this cafe regularly on Friday mornings at 9am for some time. Here's how it goes:

Each person flips their coin, holding a hand over it on the table until everyone has flipped. The coins are revealed simultaneously. Whichever of heads or tails is in the majority loses and is eliminated. The winning minority repeats the exercise, until there is only one person in the minority, and they win the pot. I have no idea what happens in case of a tie (it didn't happen).

I got eliminated in the first round. Easy come, easy go.

I saw 2046 a few days ago. It was very pretty, but pretty long and kinda slow.

I'm corning beef right now. A couple weeks ago I corned a brisket, which is the traditional cut for corned beef, and it turned out well. So, I've gotten bold and am now simultaneously corning a london broil and a hanger steak. They've been in brine for a week now and should be ready in another two weeks or so.

Howdy.