The end of the future

And so, eight months go by. I've spent them well.

I'm attending FIU for lack of some hoopier thing to do, and I recently completed a class called "Legal Writing". Don't let the name fool you, as it could easily have been "Legal Mock-Trial Having". We went through many scenarios, political and criminal, and I managed to end up on the wrong side of every last one of them.

This kept occuring because I sat on the right side of the room, where the cuter girls congregate. My sole attempt at sitting somewhere else immediately resulted in my having to defend gay marriage. I did do a remarkable job, but I was an unhappy man.

Getting to the point, we recently concluded the final mock trial, where we dressed up in suits and yelled at each other in front of some real attorney pretending to be a judge. However, in his infinite goodness God chose me to be a mere witness to this spectacle, as I got to play the investigating police officer and was thus spared from having to make motions and object to things.

However, in the interests of winning I thought it would be sporting to help my prosecution team prepare for battle, and they cheerfully responded by not showing up to our meetings. Eventually we did seem adequately prepared and I was seriously pumped about getting to wear a police hat over my MacGuyver mullet(picture to come).

At the start of the trial, things were going swimmingly. We successfully objected to most of what the defense's cross-examiner had to say, and the defense was treated to a steady diet of "overruled" from our bored looking judge. Then I take the stand. As the direct examiner begins questioning me, the judge interrupts in order to compliment me on my delightful hat, and she gets flustered. She stops asking me questions, and attempts to question me entirely with inquiring looks. I assume she was asking me questions in her head, but they did me no good until they were out in the open. So we glared at one another for at least thirty seconds, her frantically outlining our case in facial expressions, and me desperately beaming "Ask me a bloody question" rays at her. It doesn't work, and she sits down and curses me for my stupidity.

Next, I get crossexamined. Since I have to tell the truth and give answers, it's up to the prosecution to object to anything I have to say that's damaging. While I was on the stand, it occurred to me that it may have been wise to remind them of this fact. The cross-examiner asks me if anyone had seen two people in the vehicle, I say "no." She asks if in my opinion the defendant was guilty, I am forced to say "no." At this point, toddlers would be object to my obvious speculation and opinion, but there is nothing coming from the prosecution but cricket chirping. I try to hint to my fellow prosecutors that they should be objecting to everything I'm being asked by making horrible facial spasms creep across my face whenever the judge looks away. I bare my teeth, I roll my eyes back in my head, I wiggle in my seat seductively, but nothing resembling comprehension occurs on any of my comrades' faces. Oh well. I got to show off my hat.

I take my seat, and the next witness bores everyone to death, then the prosecution rests. The defense begins presenting its case, and our most confident cross-examiner moves in to salvage the case. She valiantly asks the questions she prepared at the one meeting she attended, which unfortunately have nothing to do with what has occurred in trial thus far, and sustained objections fly fast and furious. She gets upset, then utters the following two sentences that utterly doom our case and cause the entire prosecution to begin pondering how to salvage our grades.

She militantly tells the judge to "Listen honey, I'm a Cuban at that's how I do things" followed by "by the way, I'm on the rag".

The judges eyebrows fly upwards and perch near the top of his head, never to be seen again, and I immediately decide that if this courtroom contains the lawyers of the future then I would rather not be numbered among them. The defense reacts to this revelation with stunned silence. They have no idea what to do next since our case is in the darkest depths of the Mines of Moria and any action WHATSOEVER on their part is bound to distract the jury from our plight. They decide to keep talking about nothing, so that no one will be distracted from our folly.

The Jury found the defendant innocent on the way out of the courtroom to go deliberate about his innocence.

Teaching English sounds fun.

Winds of Change

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Greetings. Contrary to worldwide rumor and popular belief, I was not injured in any of the recent meterological events. The lack of new stories is entirely the fault of my girlfriend, who refuses to abandon occupied territory in my mind.

Fear not, I'm sure something surreal and story-worthy will happen to me soon enough.

Until it does, and assuming I live through it...

Adieu.

Explosions in the Sky

Yesterday, I very nearly blew myself up.

I'm a bit of a gun nut, so after a full day of shooting my friend Richard and I were cleaning our collection in my breakfast room.

Night had fallen, and an impressive thunderstorm raged outside, occasionally knocking out the power.

Not wanting to leave a bunch of half-cleaned guns strewn about my house, I lit some candles in case the power went out for good.

Cleaning firearms requires lots of solvent and rags/paper towels, which we coated the table with.

Let me pause for some important safety tips for the kids.

#1 - Do not have open flames near firearms, especially Christmas-scented candles.
#2 - Do not have ammunition in the cleaning area, regardless of how tired you are or disassembled the guns are.

As I'm cleaning and talking with Rich, I begin to feel the prickly sensation of heat on my left arm as Rich gives illuminating information on what's happening by shouting "dude, Dude, DUDE!". I turn to my left and discover that a large portion of my gun and ammo-laden table is aflame.
I am a clever person sometimes. This was not one of those times.
Rushing into manly action, I grab the flaming paper-towels WITH MY BARE HANDS and make a dash for the kitchen.
Now my hands are on fire, in addition to the table and my shooting supplies.
Not only that, but picking up the towels reveals the boxes of ammunition underneath are also on fire.
The fuel-soaked towels disintegrate on the way to the sink, leaving glowing embers strewn to mark my path from the breakfast room to the sink.
My brain catches up with me and tells me to drop them on the nonflammable tile floor, and go see what Rich is up to.
Rich has in fact stopped yelling "dude!" and has put out the flaming boxes of ammo, in addition to anything else that looks burny.
With ash now strewn about the room and our heartrates returning to the triple digits, we sit and briefly contemplate what just happened.
I put the candles out, then we laugh for about ten minutes.

Rich: "What idiot picks up flaming-death towels with his HANDS, then tries to run around with them!?!"

Me: "Maybe give me more information and less panic next time. Repeating 'Dude' is a great way to tell me the table's on fire and we are both about to be shot, then burned."


We finish cleaning the guns, and the power never does go out.

Ah well, it was worth it.