In person attendance is no longer always automatically necessary.

When you receive the summons, it includes instructions for filing out a response form online. Then, the night before you’re supposed to appear you can check to see if you are required to appear. The last time I got a summons, I didn’t have to show up in person.

Here if you are selected for a jury and serve three days or more, you’re excused from further jury duty for three years. If you serve less than three days or are excused, you can be summoned again after a year.

In Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, failing to appear for a jury summons can result in a fine of up to $500 and a sentence of up to 10 days in jail for contempt of court, or both.

A jury summons is a legally binding court order. If you miss your scheduled date, the Montgomery County Jury Office typically initiates the following process:

• Show Cause Hearing: You may be ordered to appear before a judge at a “show cause” hearing to explain why you failed to comply.

• Rescheduling: In many cases of an honest mistake or a first-time oversight, the judge may be lenient and simply order you to appear for a newly rescheduled jury date.

• Warrants: If you deliberately ignore the summons or the subsequent show cause hearings, the court can issue a bench warrant for your arrest.

I was selected for two juries.

The first was for an automobile collision. One driver turned left in front of the other and the other driver hit her. In that case, the turning driver claimed the collision happened because the other driver was speeding. The money amount was already decided. The jury only had to apportion blame. The turning driver got most of the blame.

The second jury was for a criminal trial. Two men had robbed a restaurant and terrorized the staff. They were found guilty.

Since then I haven’t been selected for jury duty. One of the questions on the response form asks if you would believe a police officer less than a citizen, and if you say no, you are asked to explain why. I’m fairly certain my honesty in filing out the form has gotten me excused from serving on a jury.

It’s a shame because I never minded serving on a jury. However, I’m not a complete moron, and I’d have to be today to think police don’t lie in court.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The only job that I am 100% certain could be successfully offloaded onto an AI is CEO.

They also gave their lives to kill innocent people in the name of cheap oil oil company profits.

FTFY

https://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/travel/a71006963/european-countries-to-move-to-for-citizenship/

That’s why 'Muricans don’t want to invest in wind power: they don’t want all that money going to Europe!

Consider also that some US Christian Nationalists are descended from people who left Britain for freedom from the national religion.

Europe dumped all their assholes and prudes in North America, and then they’re surprised that it turns to shit.

Yes, and we get to hear about it and complain about it and decide if that private company deserves to die as a result.

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. That means Meta can kick people off their platform for saying things they don’t like, and it also means that we can collectively decide Meta should cease to exist.

It’s love if it’s a cat too, it’s just flipped.

For a dog, it’s coming to see where its master is. For a cat, it’s coming to see where its pet monkey is.

Yeah, it doesn’t work for everyone. He even says that in the intro.

I’d point out that if you thought he’d get right into the story, you weren’t paying attention to my description. I’m usually asleep before he gets through the intro.

I had insomnia for about the first 45 years of my life. At its worst, I would miss at least one night of sleep per week. By “miss” I mean I would go to bed at a reasonable hour, lay there with the lights off and my eyes closed until about 4:00am, when I’d get out of bed, get dressed, and go to work.

I tried drinking myself into a stupor. I tried white noise CDs. I even got a prescription for Ambien from my doctor. That scared me because I thought meds would do the trick, but I took it and still didn’t sleep.

One day I saw a post about the Sleep With Me Podcast. It’s described as bedtime stories for adults. I followed the link, started listening, and thought, “this guy may be the most boring person I’ve ever heard”.

I started playing it when I went to bed, and it worked for me from the very first night. I fell asleep within minutes of starting the episode, but then I woke up after it ended.

The next night I loaded my phone with all the episodes. I slept through the night, but then I couldn’t wake up in the morning. My alarm would go off, I’d hit snooze, then I’d hear the podcast playing and fall asleep again.

What I finally settled on was setting a sleep timer to stop the podcast a few minutes before my alarm would go off.

I’ve been listening to that podcast every night for the last 11 years. It’s been the best sleep of my life. I’ve actually had the experience of being consciously aware of losing consciousness. It’s a weird and wonderful thing.

The thing about the stories he tells is that it seems like there might be a point, and you start listening to the story, but he goes on so many tangents and diversions that it never actually goes anywhere. After a while, my brain just shuts down.

The first episode I listened to was telling a story about a group of people about to enter a pyramid. It ran for over an hour, but I didn’t hear more than a few minutes.

The next episode continued the same story, and when I started it the next night, the people were still outside the pyramid. In over an hour of telling the story the night before, absolutely nothing happened.

I’m hoping you already have, but if you haven’t, get your fiancée to get a sleep study. Very often snoring is their way of telling you they are dying slowly.

[checking my notes to see what happened to the last guy we put in charge of Iran]

Yeah, honestly, I wasn’t really trying to establish a cause and effect. More that the out-of-control wealth disparity appears to have enabled a large number of vile, evil scum to rise up the top.

I don’t know how much “childhood” anyone is supposed to get. I think different people get different amounts.

If you got to 17 without experiencing severe trauma, you’re pretty lucky. There are plenty of people who didn’t need COVID to screw up their youth.

last years of uni, then who knows maybe i’ll have to start working

Maybe? Hell, you still seem pretty damn lucky if you can say maybe.

I graduated decades before college, and there was absolutely no question that I had to get a job and start working. My daughter graduated college in January, and within a month she was working and responsible for her life.

So, that’s the prick’s point of view: You got 17 years. Be grateful for that and move on. Do what you need to do to get over it. You’re an adult. Be one.

No the only thing that stands between me and child molestation is my morality, but that also stands between me and money and power.

Can you spare a few million?

There’s a restaurant in Reading, PA with a men’s room that has a sink, two urinals, and a toilet. No stalls. One room.

There was a lock on the door, but it left me wondering about the kind of friends who would feel comfortable coming in with you to use the urinal while you’re taking a shit.

I didn’t see the woman’s bathroom, but apparently a few others did because the lock on that door didn’t work.

Make it a fee based on vehicle mass and miles driven, have it apply to all vehicles and eliminate the gas tax.

My dad was notoriously cheap when it came to hiring contractors. Many, many years ago, when he built a building for his office, the results were ridiculous. Everything worked, but it was clear no one knew what they were doing.

The plumbing for the sinks in the bathroom was roughed in with the hot water on the right, and the cold water on the left, and then the pipes crossed each other under the sink to align with the correct valves.

When you stood at one end of the hallway, and looked to the other end, you could see that the walls, although parallel, twisted from one end to the other about 30 degrees.

I tend to go with the more expensive contractors, and I usually get screwed.

Part of my problem is people in the US don’t know how to work on old houses. We just redid our powder room. When I insisted on plaster instead of drywall, my contractor had to find an older guy who still knew how to do it.

The plasterer did a great job, but then the painters screwed up. The plaster wasn’t ready, they used the wrong paint, and after it dried the paint just fell off the walls.

Our contractor had to find a painter who knew how to work with plaster. Once he did, it was fine.

I’m not entirely happy with how they did the tile work. They did a sloppy, lazy job, which is probably what they’re used to doing. However, that wasn’t bad enough to keep fighting over.

Still, it looks nice:

I’ve heard that hamsters will play dead so effectively, that they will convince their owners that they actually are dead.

So, assuming that’s true, some hamsters die horribly in a small box underground.