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Tuesday, July 08, 2003 Terminator 2 -- Judgment Day Stacey turned in early. Matt is going back "home" tomorrow. Today is his birthday. Stacey stayed home from work. We prepared a birthday breakfast and hung out. I set up an appointment with Dr. Cyborg for 10:45, except that I thought it was for 10:45, but it was really for 9:45. Scott is seeing Matt tomorrow at 8:30 in the morning -- saving my life. Matt wanted to hit up 'Stino da Napoli for dinner, but it wasn't open. 'Stino is on holiday in Naples, I guess; so, we went to Danny Boy's for dinner. The J-dogg went to a meeting after dinner. We saw Terminator 3 Sunday. Matt wanted to spend the evening watching Terminator 2. Jack came home a few minutes ago and joined Matt and me watching the denouement, widescreen, of course, with the lights out, of course. I'm sitting here kind of watching the movie, but mostly peeking over at him watching the movie. Tears are dripping, not flowing, down my cheeks. And memories are flooding back. Twenty-two years plus nine months of memories. The vertical scar on left side of his forehead that stretches about midway up his forehead to his hairline glistens a little, or maybe that's just my imagination. We were playing "Catch the Kids." I was chasing Matt and Jack around the house through the living room, dining room, kitchen, and back into the living room in an oval. Matt didn't make a turn and flew head first into the corner of the wall between the dining room and kitchen. Funny. It didn't bleed straight away. There was a big, gaping gash in his forehead, bone glistening white in the crease. He needed stitches, for sure. Stace put a clean towel to the gash. I called the plastic surgeon I knew. I didn't want any E.R. hack doing the work -- except that I'm sure that if the E.R. hack had done the job, Matt's hockey career would have been enhanced ten-fold. The plastic surgeon showed up after we sat in an E.R. room for about four hours. Every nurse, doctor, and orderly asked what happened. They separated us and asked Matt while alone what happened. I suppose they thought I took a hatchet to his head. Anyway, he got stitched up, eventually. Ten-fold. That reminds me of Penfold. And Danger Mouse -- a British cartoon. Danger Mouse (D/M, for short, as Penfold, his trusted sidekick, called him.) as a crime-fighting mouse. He wore all white. Matt loved D/M and ended up dressing up all in white for some time. White turtlenecks and white pants. He did have an invisible rhinoceros friend -- borrowed from his favorite movie when he was in pre-school, the Disney cartoon version of Robin Hood -- but there is no need to embarass him. And speaking of embarassment, I can't tell you how many times he hit me in the balls while I was tending goal in the driveway with hockey pucks and street hockey balls. He did it on purpose, I know. And now he's moving on. Wait, he popped in the original Terminator -- cool. Talk to you later. Monday, July 07, 2003 Fireworks -- Dangerous or Fun? There's this big-ass cone you light up -- MEGAPOP CONE. It is made by Red Rhino ("When Power Counts"), and it has a red wrapper with yellow popcorn on it, like the Jiffy Pop pan. Here is what it says on the thing: "PERFORMANCE Huge Showers of Loud Popping, Crackling and Bright Popcorn." It also has a huge CAUTION thing about using "only under close adult supervision." It says not to hold it in one's hand, but it says nothing about not picking up and eating the popping, crackling popcorn. There are a bunch of these fireworks that tell the user (that would be me) to "use only under close adult supervision." "Do not hold in hand" is a very popular warning on the fireworks. Oddly enough, there is one thing called "Dazzling Diamonds." It's a tube that is like three-feet long and about an inch-and-a-half in diameter. You may have seen a Stinger missile launcher -- it kind of looks like that. You would think it would have a big "CAUTION" on it -- well, it does (in big red letters). Here is what it says in the caution-inducing block: "HOLD IN HAND AT BOTTOM OF TUBE." What the hell? It also says: "LIGHT FUSE." So, you hold this fire-spewing apparatus in your hand and let it fly! The label says: "An exciting showering waterfall effect that will amaze the viewer. It starts with liquid orange glow which changes to a blue glittering effect and then concludes with a brilliant blue pearl changing to a silver flashing chrysanthemum finish. A great show!" Hold that in your hand. I'm not. You would think that it would tell you to "Light Fuse and Get Away," like the RHINOCEROS, which shoots fireballs out its ass and sparks out its nose. That is a very, very common warning. Light fuse and get away -- makes these things sound pretty dangerous. That is even printed in real little type on bottle rockets. I know that because I found a couple of those laying there by a golf bag out in the garage when I went out into the garage this morning to head to court at about 8:45 a.m. And there was a pink BIC lighter laying right next to those two bottle rockets. Damn! Has Fate ever said anything so clearly to you before? Well, I must say -- I have not. What else could this sign from above mean? There was no other interpretation possible. I put down my briefcase. The judge could fuckin' wait. I knew the prosecutor quite well and the morning docket is always so lengthy that if you don't get there early, you may as well get there late because it's first-come, first-served in that court. And it was 8:45. The hearings started at 8:30. I was already late. It was a sign. A few more minutes late was not going to matter any. My client would be asleep anyway -- I always had to wake him up, no matter what time I got there. Hell, if I let him sleep longer, he might be coherent when I woke him up. And another glorious sign! The BIC lighter worked! Yes, it lit up right away. No muss, no fuss. But there were no bottles. There was a carton of Corona Long-Necks over by the refrigerator. I would have to open one of them, but there was the solution staring me right in the face! The bottle rockets were laying across the maw of the golf bag! How could I not see what that meant! Brilliant! I could balance the two rockets between the outer rim and one of the club dividers -- perfecto! And I could light them up together! Oh, joy of joys! Not one bright, streaking rocket in the morning sky, but two rockets making their way into the heavens, then exploding with a "loud report," which would be multiplied by a factor of two. This was truly heaven-sent! And it was easy to balance the rockets in such a way that they would shoot out of the garage and into dawn's early light. I did that. I flicked my BIC! The flame licked the fuses -- oh, so quickly -- fizzing fuses. The rockets took off with a scream -- oh, what a sound! Then there was a clang -- one of the unguided missiles hit the edge of the garage door. Oh, shit! was the only thing to come to mind. The rocket -- it streaked just to my right and hit the garage wall, ricocheting to a spot near my feet. Then it exploded. Sodomy and the Supreme Court The Supreme Court finally extended the seminal ruling that established the right to privacy of Griswold v. Connecticut. The Griswold case is the basis for many cases involving individual rights not explicitly set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Oh, yeah -- hey, I'm trying to be serious here. I don't know how long I can keep it up, but we'll see. And that is a problem for a lot of Constitutional scholars who think that the Court should construe the Constitution strictly (a woman's right to choose is not explicitly set forth and is based, in part, on Griswold) and that the Court should not interpret the law in light of changes in society that have occurred over the past two centuries. On the other side of the coin are those who think that the Court has the right to interpret the Constitution and apply it to societal circumstances that are ever-evolving. And we can now count the recent earth-shaking Texas sodomy decision, Lawrence v. Texas, by the Supreme Court as one of Griswold's progeny, a decision which struck down Texas law outlawing sodomy, which will at some point lead to a decision that same-sex marriages cannot be barred by the States. While many find this decision problematic, two other decisions cause me far greater consternation. You will recall that the Court upheld the lengthy prison sentence of the California man for a petty theft offense under the three-time loser law. The Court, in Lockyer v. Andrade, effectively said that two 25-year-to-life prisn terms for a petty offense, usually punishable by not more than six months in a local jail, was not unconstitutional. It was not cruel and unusual punishment or a violation of the man's right to due process and equal protection of the law. How can we reconcile this decision with the Supreme Court's decision that struck down a $145 million punitive damages award, in State Farm v. Campbell, terming it "excessive" enough to trigger due process protection under the 14th Amendment. So, it's okay to give a guy two life sentences for intentionally doing something against the law in a criminal case, but it is not okay to smack someone, an insurance company, with a stiff monetary sanction in a case for money damages for intentionally doing something against the law. There is something wrong here somewhere. Sunday, July 06, 2003 Rockin' In the Free World Lucy -- it's not that sickly urine color; and I'm not making it hot pink. Sorry. Kathy -- it wasn't purple; it was blue, but I've been known to have a problem with color perception. But then, you probably know what taupe is when you see it. When was taupe invented, and by whom? I was thinking of some kind of logo or theme, but I just got the damn thing back to working, except I don't know if I did it or it was just a fortuitous coincidence. I'm making it white -- I'm leaving it white. If you don't like it, that's too damn bad. I thought you were coming here for the content.
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