So as promised, the case I was selected to be an alternate juror on ended on Tuesday afternoon after about 25 minutes of deliberation. I will summarize the case now:

The parents of a young boy were suing the Torrance Unified School District for an event that occurred two years ago. When the boy was 5, he was involved in a soccer-like game with a teaching assistant and other boys where the boys and the teaching assistant would take turns kicking the ball back and forth between each other. On one such occasion, the teaching assistant kicked the ball and it struck the kid on the right wrist. The boy cried out in pain, was taken the the nurses office and then Harbor UCLA where it was discovered he had fractured both his ulna and radius. The parents were suing based on the grounds that the teacher was being negligent in her activity with the children and was responsible for the broken bones.

Well, now that you know the situation, here’s what it took 3 days to cover in court. The ball the children and teaching aid were playing with was one of those small (about 14″ diameter) squishy, rubber red balls. A doctor brought in by the plaintiff admitted that the ball could not have caused the bone fractures but a fall could have; therefore the boy must have fallen from the impact of the ball. Well, the problem is that no one saw the boy fall and the boy does not remember falling. In the end, regardless of endless witness testimonies, the plaintiff failed miserably to establish negligence on the part of TUSD. The teacher’s assistant was doing what she normally did on a regular basis with the children that day and nothing was out of the ordinary. While the boy did suffer broken bones, there was no hard evidence that the teaching assistant activity caused it. He might have fallen while running or whatever. It was stupid and the right verdict was cast by the jury 11 to 1 that the school district was not negligent as was not responsible for what had happened to the child.

That’s pretty much it, the case was frivolous and incredibly weak once all the facts came out. I remember in the plaintiff’s closing one comment he had made. During the course of the trial, one witness had indicated that the boy was leaning over with his shoulders down before the teaching assistant had kicked the ball to him. The witness then demonstrated the pose, which to me, looked like a football linebacker getting ready before a play. In his closing statement, the plaintiff said the boy was obviously in a dangerous and precarious position that was obviously unstable. Now, from my experience, you actually have GREATER balance when you’re hunched over with your shoulders slightly down because it’s like you’re bracing yourself for potential impact. The plaintiff’s counsel also indicated he had 3 small children of his own and that at 5 years of age, the were obviously too young to play such a dangerous game. Give me a break, that lawyer must be like the stupidest man alive. There’s more things about the case that I could describe as ludicrous and just retarded, but I think I got my fill. I also served my duty for at least one year and apparently, I also made $45.00 from serving 3 days (they don’t pay for the first day — bastards). Woohoo, time to go to Sizzler!

So anyway, it’s Saturday night now and I just got in from seeing Stardust. It was a good movie and if I was still in the habit of buy DVD’s, it would probably land on my list of films to buy. If I ever get a Bluray player though, it probably would not be on my list. The special effects were good but there were times when I just thought things had horribly awkward juxtaposition. Not sure if things would look that way in real life but some things just looked fake (similar to how the river scene in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe looked fake). Aside from the visuals though, it was a predictable yet enjoyable story. I don’t know that i would call it a modern day Princess Bride but I can see how some would make that comparison (there’s just a lot more humor in the Princess Bride than this film). Anyway, if you rent this film, you won’t be missing much but it’s definitely worth a go at least once.

I’m about to leave for work and I’ve been listening to this one MP3 I downloaded from ocremix.org pretty frequently as of late. For those of you who are nostalgic, loved Turtles in Time for the Super NES, and enjoy video game music remixed, then this track is probably right up your alley.

I’ve also got other guilty gaming pleasures on my iPod these days: LocoRoco Original Soundtrack and the Phoenix Wright Meets Jazz album. Anyone else think the LocoRoco songs were sung by kids on crack or something?

Well, the title pretty much says it all. So far I’ve sat in on 1.5 days of trial and 1.5 days of jury selection. I obviously cannot talk about the case as it’s still going on, but rest assured, I will complain like hell about it once it’s over. I can’t believe the type of stuff that gets brought up in civil cases. Aiya!

What else is new? Hmmm, not much really. I picked up where I left off in Super Paper Mario about three months ago and am making a commitment to finishing it. After that, I’m going to work on Phoenix Wright 2 and Heroes of Mana. Let me say it now, if you have a DS and like RTS games even in the least, GET HEROES OF MANA. You won’t regret it and it’ll prolly be one of Square-Enix’s best releases this year. Other than Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (or is it now Final Fantasy Tactics DS?) and maybe Dragon Quest IX, Square-Enix hasn’t won any points with me in quite a while.

Other than doing a lot of gaming in my continuing attempts to squash my own soul, I am also in the process of perhaps finally getting my portfolio updated and back online. I bought the domain flakeboy.com almost a year ago… and damn if that wasn’t a waste of money! Well, I guess it’s a good thing it’s taken me so long to put anything together. My layout is all done in flash but I am currently on my 4th design iteration. Each redesign was made more and more simpler than the previous so I’m hoping this final and minimalist design will lead to more freelance gigs and/or maybe anew job if that’s what fate holds in store for me. I’ll be sure to post when my portfolio is finally up.

It’s a shame though. I had all my projects stored on CD since like 1999 and then transferred my data on to DVDs and guess what? Now the DVD’s won’t read properly. And like a schmuck, I don’t have the original CDs anymore. That’s one bag of woes where I slap myself for being stupid. Even worse though are the projects that were never on CD and went straight to DVD. A few of my early wedding projects come to mind and I’m quite bummed about not being able to retrieve any of those files. If anyone knows of a kick-ass, ultimate DVD reader, let me know. Cause its odd how some drives will be able to grab data that another DVD-rom drive couldn’t. I hate DVDs. I’m gonna get myself a few 500G (or maybe higher) externals and have them serve as secondary and tertiary drives and have redundancy drives set up to back up the externals. When I move into my own place (eventually) I’m planning to have a shelf lined with external drives (you know, when I actually buy a desk).

Since I FINALLY beat Pokémon Diamond last week, I have since moved on to newer ventures. I have gone back into the DS back log to find old games and new to try out. The game I’m playing now is Phoenix Wright, Ace Attourney (the first one). Released about 2 years ago witht he system’s initial launch, it’s still a great game.

Phoenix Wright thinks this is a crappy screen capture…

In the game in itself is actually a remake of an old Game Boy game and is really just a point-and-click, choose-your-own-adventure type of game. Multiple story paths? Kinda of but not really. Regardless, its fun and probably only fun the first time through. Kind of like a movie you go to see–and enjoy a lot–but know that you probably will not be able to enjoy it again a second time through. If you got the time for a fun game, pick this one up in your used bin as there is already a sequel out and a 3rd one being released next month. Incidentally, the main character also looks a lot like a friend of mine. I sent him an email today about this isseu (if he stole his current hairdo from the main character) but he has yet to reply.

I also purchased Mario Strikers Charged for the Wii on Tuesday and have so far only played through a few of the turtorial lessons. I figure I’ll give this game more time once I’ve finished Phoenix Wright… then again, I still have not beaten Super Paper Mario. On Chapter 6 of 8… I should go back and finish that… hmmm… but yeah, Mario Stikers Charged is fairly enjoyable so far and I’m guessing it’ll be more fun in multi-player mode. Anyone up for a game? Come on over. if you own a Wii and the game, lets play on Wii WiFi!. Send me a message for my Wii friend code! ;)

Wow it’s been a while since my last post. I guess I’ve been caught up in work quite a bit since they let my co-worker go (that means twice the work for me!). Actually, since it’s August, it’s been slow so I’m very much on the side of this being a poor time to evaluate whether or not 2 people are needed but I guess I’ll find out come the Winter season how busy it gets since year-end (November really) is when things heat up.

2 weeks ago I saw the Simpsons Movie with Eddie and Bryan and for fans of the show, it was a great treat. It didn’t quite feel like a real movie (you know?) but it was much more than a regular episode. Plus the certain scenes when Homer was able to act even more over the top (like flipping twin birds to all the local Springfielder’s) was awesome. But more than the movie, I really enjoyed visiting the local Kwik-E-Mart in Burbank. Unlike the one in West LA, this former 7-Eleven is kept in good condition and because they control the flow of customers in and out, it’s not super crowded and it allows plenty of photo ops. :)

Finally, I must say to all of you who read my blog (however infrequently I update) and you know I subscribe to your Xanga blog, I’m not sure why but as of 2 weeks ago, i stopped getting all my Xanga emails–Boo! on Xanga. I’m wondering if it’s because I need to be on your friend’s list to get the emails or because I aven’t posted an actual blog entry on Xanga since December 2005… I dunno. On the FAQ it says sometimes they stop things for maintenance, but it’s been like 3 weeks now. If I can’t get people’s blogs in my email, then I don’t read. I don’t have time to jump around from blog to blog! :p