On My Recent Absence and the WBC

As per the brillant words of Thomas Quealy, this blog has recently went downhill. My apologies. After completing jury duty (more on this below), I spent a weekend in D.C. where Poff got legally married, and a week trading the Asian open. But this is no excuse...

Instead of describing what jury duty is like, I'd just like to run over the schedule. I show up on a Wednesday morning, 8:30. We all got their 60 minutes early because they wanted to be sure everybody was there on time so that the overview portion would not have to be repeated, which was a futile exercise and they repeated it anyway. Then, they sit you in a hot, smelly room for a number of hours, the monotony being broken only by them calling out a list of names for a jury pool (anywhere from 1 to 4 times per day, i got called once during the time i was there but the case settled while we were walking to the courtroom) and an exhorbitantly long lunch break (2 hrs bid). And then we repeated it the next day. People who find the jury process frustrating could solve that problem by recognizing a simple assumption on which the entire system is basd. In the view of the State of New York, it is preferrable to waste an hour of time for 500 jurors than to have a judge/attorney/defendant spend one more minute of the day doing their job than necessary. This is the irish system that allows us to fraternize with 500 of our fellow residents of New York County, and dispense (of) justice.

So I am watching the World Baseball Classic with Tony and Thomas (Meredith was there too) on the 50 incher (it is not being shown in HD, which sucks). United States vs. Japan; kind of like World War II, but with some blown calls by the not-yet-ready-for-primetime umps. I think those of us who are real baseball fans are appreciative of having so much of the game on TV this early in the year; personally I lament that it will all disappear on Thursday, despite the debauchery which is sure to ensue from having the tourney start on St. Patrick's Day eve. As you would have guessed, I have made several insightful comments on the play of the game to those fortunate enough to have watched it with me, but the best was likely noting that the Japanese team is being managed by Sadaharu Oh, the US team by...Buck Martinez. Not a lot of majesty in that selection...I can't believe he was really USA Baseball's first choice.