i got a message from (e:ladycroft) asking about who she got for secret santa since the party she thought we were exchanging presents at was tomorrow.

the party at which presents will be exchanged is the party (e:pmt) is supposed to have for the holidays, sometime between xmas and new years.

since i had the unexpected trial that i had to sit though all this week, i have not been able to do quite a few things i had on my schedule. i will get to everyone's secret santa info out next week. well, actually i'm not the one who will be doing the selecting, but you will all get post-its about who got whom.

the trial has ended. the defendant was found not guilty on all 7 counts. 2 attempted murder charges, 2 unlawful possession of deadly weapon, 2 assault charges and one menacing charge. although all of the jurors thought the guy most likely did it, there wasnt enough evidence to convict him of the charges.

i could not even believe the DA even decided to bring this to trial. it was such a weak case. no weapon, no motive, no identification of the vehicle from which the shootings occurred, and only one eye witness, the plaintiff who was shot, as the only evidence. AND on top of it all, the plaintiff had pending charges against him for shooting the defendants cousin just this past month. both of them were in custody at the erie county holding center.

it was kinda neat at the end of the trial because the the supreme court judge came in to the jury room and chatted with us and answered any questions we may have had. like why was there so little evidence, and why werent we allowed to know certain things, and why were things done the way they were. he was mad cool and this way an interesting experience. we were treated like royalty. every time we entered or left the room everyone stood up. everyone stared at us (which could be good or bad) and avoided us in the hallways.

monday its back to the same ole grind. trying to catch up with everything that might have fallen apart while i was gone.

the holidays are coming up and i have no idea as to what to buy anyone for christmas. my daughter dosnt deserve anything, not because of her behavior, but because of her grades. i know she wants the new zelda game, and thankfully they make it for gamecube still. she will definitely not be getting a wii, nor will she be getting a replacement MP3 that i smashed to pieces when she pissed me the hell off. NOR will she be going to japan in the summer as promised if she got good grades. i have never met a lazier person in my entire life.

plus my mothers birth day is coming up on the 11th. i am only buying presents for....my mother, my stepfather, my daughter, my b/f, and my secret santa. that's it, 5 people. not like the average american, that shops for like....20? what is the exact number for that? anyone know?

if i had time, i would have painted some pots for my co workers and filled them with stuff. they would have made such cute presents. i also had to turn down an order for twelve pots for xmas, because of time constraints. (e:pmt) you should consider yourself lucky that you one of the only original yvonne pots out there! (not that you care all that much, but i like to think so!)

ok, peace out peeps. i shall see you at the party tomorrow. how much money should i bring with me? how much will the drinks be costing?

soma,

i play oblivion on the PC. the problem is that although my daughter, my b/f and i all have laptops, we only have one desktop and that is the only computer that has high enough specs to play the game. so i have not been able to put in as many hours as i'd like b/c i have to take turns with both my daughter and my b/f who are both lame and just get in the way of my oblivion domination.

i started a new character because i didn't like what i picked for my first one. i was an imperial, because i thought i just wanted to fight my way through the game. but after playing for a while, i decided that i wanted to be better at magic and thievery so i restarted as a dark elf and i made my own custom class.

also this might be kind of rediculous, but i plan on joining all of the guilds, including the dark brotherhood, and doing all of the quests and exploring all of the ruins and caves. i found a map online showing ALL of the structures, caves, mines, ruins, etc and there are so fucking many that it's mind blowing. when i was an imperial i was in the theives guild and the dark brotherhood. This time around, so far, i have joined the theives guild, but have not completed all of the quests yet, and joined the mages guild, again not completed all of the quests yet.

at the rate i'm going it looks like its going to take me months and months to get through the game. i am taking my time to build my skills, and explore the world around me. i especially like making my own potions out of just about everything and anything i find. i have moved on from novice to journeyman in alchemy.

i still have not started the main quest. i did when i was an imperial, but decided this time around to wait until i gained some items (wishing for the skeleton key) and experience (although i know that the enemys get more difficult as you gain experience). I'll keep you posted on my progress if you care to know.

guess what yall, I've been selected to sit as an alternate juror on a double attempted murder trial. the jury selection was yesterday and part of this morning. the trial began this afternoon. its so exciting. I sit right in the front row next to the witness stand. its like a real life law and order episode. I love this kind of stuff. I feel so important and its like a min vacation from work. (roswell pays me my full salary while sitting on a jury)

I went to the main place mall today, I wouldn't call that dump a mall at all, but I did find the buffalo store and it did have buffalo ornaments. so mike you need worry not. I took some pictures. ill post them as soon as I get out of the trial.

2nd entry of the day.

jury duty for today is over. I really wish the jurors could stop the lawyers and ask question. for example when they are cross examining witnesses who testify that the bullet casings had not prints on them, I wanted to ask whether shells usually don't have prints when they come from a semi-automatic gun? I mean if they usually don't then its no big deal. if they do, then that may be significant. also when the witness says he examined a bullet hole in the rear bumper of the car, but did not find a casing anywhere near by, I wanted to ask if he could tell what type of weapon was the bullet from. why didn't the lawers think of this?

anyways,
mike here are the pictures of the ornaments.

so its my first jury duty experience. I am sitting here along with 500 other people trying to figure out what to do with myself. luckily I have this handy dandy phone onwhich I can do just about anything. for all you PPC6700 nerds, did you know that you can make you phone a universal remote control?

I wish I could sit here and play oblivion. unfortunately that is one of the few things my phone can't do. although, they do have a mobile version but its not anything close to the real thing.

here is a pic of the jury room. I'm not sure if this is legal but who cares! I'm a rebel!





and here is our christmas tree decorating experience we didn't get to finish because our lights went off but ill post a finished pic in the coming days.

ohhh! looks like I'm being called into a court room.