So I've been called for Jury Duty ... in Pennsylvania ... where I haven't lived in 6 months.
I suppose I shouldn't be too critical of the local government there, since it's only been 6 months. It's not like I've been living in Vermont for 6 years.
The thing is, however, a few months ago I received notice that my PA voter registration was being canceled because I had moved. Imagine that! They only needed 90 days to take me off the voter registration books, but were somehow unable to figure out that I shouldn't be selected for jury duty.
The problem here is that the republican party actively tries to remove people from the voter registry. It's a very strange strategy, really. The republicans aggressively try to get people not to vote, especially in demographics that will likely vote against them. It's like they're admitting that they have a bad product that no one wants, so they remove their competitors customers to increase their own "market share".
Like I said, strange. One would think they would ... oh... change their platform to something more people would vote for.
In the mean time, I'm just not going to vote in Vermont - at least not this cycle. I can't really say anything intelligent about the local political scene, so I will just keep my mouth shut. On the national level, Vermont is not a battleground state by any stretch. My vote really wouldn't matter much.
For now I have 30 days to convince the folks back in Pennsylvania that I can't be called for Jury duty from 3 states away. The task shouldn't be hard, but who knows? Maybe I should serve just to argue that I deserve my voting rights back.
I just did a day in Norristown on Aug 25th. Ended up that both criminal cases cleared themselves for the day -- one guy pleaded guilty, on the other guy got a continuance until the next day.
The Judge was nice, he came and spoke to us. Upon being asked directly "How were we picked?" He conceded that it used to be voter registration. However, that didn't draw enough of a population to draw samples from, so now in PA (at least in Mont Co.) they use Drivers License Renewals as the event that triggers new names into the hat. It turns out that rather than keep fewer people on juries for a week or more, they opt to have lots of people on file, and keep them only for 1 day or 1 trial, whichever is longer. They perceive this as least disruptive to people's lives. I guess to a great extent that is true. But it does make it much more difficult on some to 'get out of it' since the effort required is less, such as single moms without a babysitter.
I just got my check for my efforts in the mail last week -- $14. That includes $9 for the day plus mileage compensation based on zipcode. Driving a big-assed truck, I lost a little on the mileage deal. But, my employer paid me for the day, so I guess I made out. I can go an buy myself a case of mediocre beer.
Not that you have any time, but I haven't seen/heard any more Zoski originals. When's the next song/recording coming?
I've been kicking around some song "ideas" in my head for a little while, but I'm just not motivated. The software I'm using is the "evaluation" version, which doesn't let me save or load projected in the middle; I can only save mp3 versions. That means I have to write the whole damn thing in one sitting. Right now, approximately 1 minute of music is 1 hour of work.
In order to write a 4 minute song, I need to find 4 free hours to put the whole thing together. Usually what happens is I can chug away for an hour or 90 minutes, and then just burn out.
The other problem I have is playing with the synthesizers. Ok, technically they're synthesizer emulators, but we'll just call them synthesizers. Whatever they are, I'm really just not that good with them. I literally have to spend hours and hours playing with one before I get a sound that I like. That wouldn't be too bad except I can't save the synthesizer settings! Trying to come up with sounds I like and then put them into songs becomes a marathon task.
Do I really want to spend a whole day on it? Usually the answer is no.
I don't think it is strange. Do you know how many dead people vote in Philadelphia? Lots. It's a typical Democratic play.
If both sides would play nice, we wouldn't have these problems.
Moving out of the area is a valid reason to be excused. I got out of Jury Duty twice in Philadelphia (It took years to get me off the JD selection) and Mont Co that way.
Last my Mom told me, I could still vote in Philadelphia (as well as my brother). It's been almost 20 years! I'll have to ask her to check the book again when she votes this year.