I wish that I had more time....

[Pottapaug1938]

This morning, I took my car to my local mechanic, to get the rear shocks replaced. With my house fire, I can no longer simply walk home and await the completion of the repairs; so I took the subway in town, and decided to head for the local courthouse and see if I could catch an interesting trial.

By the time that the car was ready; no trials were underway; but I did spend some time in two Criminal Sessions of the local Superior Court. Most of the cases involved guilty pleas, or admissions to sufficient facts to support a finding of guilty; and the defendants all walked out of court with continuances, with the cases being dismissed if probation, and the other requirements of the judge, were successfully completed and met.

All, that is, except one woman. She was there alone, because (as she put it) she had "had it" with lawyers. It seems that they would not do what she wanted them to do -- namely, ask for dismissal of the charges based on the unconstitutional refusal of the Commonwealth to allow her to confront the witnesses against her. She could confront them in court, the judge told her; but the woman asked how it was that she could confirm that these witnesses were not impersonating officers of the law and FBI agents, unless she was provided with copies of their full names and addresses, IDs and badge numbers? She further asserted that the U.S. Attorney had confirmed that she was right.

The judge, I could tell, was having a major struggle between doing her job in a professional manner, and telling this dimwit to go suck a Constitutional egg. Several times, she asked the defendant to agree to have standby/elbow counsel, to help with matters of procedure, form and the like; but the defendant would have none of that. She chose to have a hearing, tomorrow, on her oral Motion to Dismiss. The judge cautioned the defendant that she must support her motion in writing, in proper form and with proper citations; and the "whoosh", as the judge's words sailed right in one of the defendant's ears and out the other, was audible to all.

Oh, how I wish that I had the time to sit in for that hearing on the Motion to Dismiss....

[TheNewSaint]

There's a lot of entertainment to be had at your local courthouse. Especially if you're the type of person who reads Quatloos.

In journalism class in college, i had to go to a local court proceeding, and write a news story about something that went on there. I found myself in a lame civil dispute court, which had few cases because most people didn't even show up.

Until I got the ex-couple fighting over the NASCAR collectible plates.

Apparently they'd co-bought a set of these laughably overpriced things, and were bickering about the potential value from the Franklin Mint tv commercial as if it were real money. I had my story: "NASCAR Collectible Plates May Be Worth Something After All." Got an A+, and a few laughs.

[Pottapaug1938]

I toured the Franklin Mint in January of 1976. There were many beautiful coins and medals on display; but the only things which I could buy, individually, without buying an entre set or subscribing for one, were some ugly zodiac medals. I chose to buy nothing.

Some years later, I was at a coin dealer's shop, somewhere in Greater Boston, when a woman walked in, carrying some spiffy wooden boxes containing some spiffy "collectible sets" -- something like "Disco Stars of the 70s", "Famous Civil War Figures", "Favorite Cartoon Characters", or the like (I can't remember the actual titles). The woman clearly expected to reap a sum tidy enough to pay for at least part of her son's college expenses; and when she found out that the dealer would only pay her the scrap value of the silver in the medals, she was at first, incredulous. After arguing for awhile, with comments like "but these are highly collectible sets, in polished walnut cabinets", she eventually left, muttering about how the dealer was clearly trying to cheat her.

[Siegfried Shrink]

Pretty much off topic but I was still buying these sets at auction 15 years ago and making a small profit selling them for scrap