*long-suffering sigh*

Not that anyone will be shocked...

So

1. Some under-trained, low-level clerk dismissed a case for lack of service.
2. Boss had to waste time actually drafting a motion, with case citations, about how his case should not have been dismissed for lack of service, since there was in fact documented service (which anyone could read from the court's public website, btw.)
3. DC charges for every motion. Including this one. I think it cost us $45 to send it to the court for consideration.
4. The hearing on March 18 was cancelled. It could not be revivied, despite the fact that Boss submitted his motion on March 2.
5. Boss's March 2 motion has still not been decided by a judge. This case is still closed for the moment on the grounds of no service.

Yes. It's kind of sad that no one is shocked when I tell them this story. And even I, who actually see conspiracies nowhere (mostly becuase conspiracies require a level of secrecy and competence that most government agencies can't POSSIBLY hope to achieve), do wonder if it is a new business model of teh DC court to randomly close one out of every six cases for lack of service as a way of generating revenue. Remember, this is the second case in which we have participated in the last year that was incorrectly closed for this reason. Boss points out that it is probably (also) cheaper for the court to just not train people and deal with their screwups after the fact - though I don't know if that is true, as the judges probably get pretty annoyed with having to *actually* review a file to see that service was performed. I know they must have better things to do than waste their time on that kind of crap. It probably negates my conspiracy theory, too. I don't think the judges would put up with it.

CK's Animae Report

We have been slowly dipping our toes into this genre.

I will admit that my basic idea of animae was that it was basically about big-eyed child women with gigantic breasts, scantily clad, shooting bazookas at Transformers.

So, I have been pleasantly surprised. Of course, we've been fairly selective and haven't delved too deeply yet, but for anyone who might be interested...

First, the TV shows we have watched.

1. Ghost in the Shell. OK, admittedly, the kick-ass heroine of this show IS, in fact, a scantily-clad, well-endowed, android. Sorry to have to start off that way. This show is set in a futuristic world where everyone has cyber inplants in their brains - think Bluetooth for your brain - and people can get prosthetic bodies, either after terrible accidents or just because they want to be tougher cops. It's about a paramilitary unit fighting corruption and conspiracy in Japan. Interesting. Sometimes deep. Some of the conspiracies are pretty complex and I haven't seen all the eps, so I did find it a little confusing. Not a bad show.

2. Cowboy Beebop. OK, admittedly, I was *extremely resistant* to watching this based on it's ridiculous name. That is the only bad thing about this show. It is by far some of the best television you are likely to ever see, especially if you are the kind of person who thinks Firefly was one of the best shows ever. Three bounty hunters on a spaceship, eeking out a living in a colonized solar system. There are funny standalone stories, and more serious stories that are part of an arc about organized crime.

3. Samurai Champloo. AWESOME. From the same folks that brought us Cowboy Beebop. Set in Edo period Japan, but with lots of anacrhonistic features, including "hip hop" influences, Japanese style. A young woman recruits two wandering swordsmen to be her bodyguards as she searches for "the samurai who smells of sunflowers." Very funny, very bloody, and absolutely beautifully drawn. Also, this show was a lesson in how it can be hard to watch a show from another culture. When we started looking at web-stuff about the show, we realized how much we missed becuase we don't know Japanese history. It's background stuff, and missing it doesn't interfere with enjoyment of the show, though. LOVED THIS.

4. Eden of the East. Definitely putting this one in a second tier. Didn't suck, though, and it did have a fairly original premise. 12 people are forced to participate in a game in which they each get 10 billing yen to spend however they want to "fix" Japanese society, with death the penalty for failure. Whiney, annoying female lead, but the story is engaging. And instead of busty, scantily clad female characters, by the end you get 20 thousand naked guys running around with their "johnnys" blurred out.



In the category of movies, so far we have only seen "My Neighbor Totoro," a kids' movie about two girls who move into a "haunted house" with their father and meet the fantastic creatures who live in the neighborhood. Very sweet, and, like Champloo, *beautiful* to watch.