an amusing incident occurred in court yesterday.

the courts i go to employ (and i use the term approximately, for the employment contract is not what one might term 'voluntary', and the employment benefits, not to mention salaries, are pegged somewhat below prevailing industry standards. the more cynical might even view it as forced servitude) little 18 year old boys as court clerks.

proceedings had just about ended for a particular accused yesterday. the judge was on the verge of pronouncing sentence. this particular court clerk, who, one might describe as a slightly excitable and eccentric individual, had been following proceedings very closely. he apparently realised that the judge had deviated from his usual procedure.

so just as the judge looked up to deliver the sentence upon the accused, the court clerk piped up in a loud and trilling voice, which riveted the whole court :

"i think you forgot something."

judge looked at clerk.

clerk : "you forgot to ask the accused if he has any special applications and objections to make." for the record, this question is usually asked before proceedings begin, and is a chance for the accused to make an application for say, an adjournment, so that his case would be heard another day. given that the accused had already pleaded guilty and had been convicted, this was obviously a rather moot point.

judge : "yes, it appears i have." pause "well then, we'd better do that shouldn't we."

clerk : "yes."

judge (to accused) : "accused, do you have any special applications to make?"

accused (utterly bewildered) : "no."

the judge turned and smiled avuncularly towards the clerk : "look, it seems as if the accused has no special applications to make."

clerk nods sagaciously

judge, turning back to the accused : "i hereby sentence you to three years and three months imprisonment, from today."

it took me all i had to keep from laughing out loud in open court. i don't think the accused's family would have appreciated it very much.

in the off-chance that anyone out there feels like acquiring a digital video camera - here's one up for grabs. panasonic nv-gs27, with a whopping 30x optical zoom. shoot from a distance. i played with a demo set at best denki, and it quite slim and well put together.

brand new, still sealed in its box; never opened. full warranty (i would presume 1 year) as of today. warranty card etc. still sealed with the camera, as you can see from the first picture.

retails at $599 + gst at best denki, or at least it did when i was there a couple of nights ago. $450 and it's yours, a nice 25% off. may be negotiable if you can show me that it sells for a drastically cheaper price elsewhere.

leave a comment, or contact me via whatever other means if you're interested.

and since i'm stuck, immotile, in front of my computer, here's more entertainment for the masses. penned by one of my colleagues and i, in turn, in verse. and in a language neither of us is particularly comfortable with. the product of bored minds, and a language, bastardised.

i write in purple; my unnamed colleague in pencil (so she could erase her mistakes after checking her characters by typing hanyu pinyin into her handphone). please note that my insults are, typically, of a far higher standard than what appears here. subtlety and wit are not easily conveyed via a vocabulary that extends to, approximately, 23 different characters. out of necessity, the breadth and depth of my flowery aspersions had to be curtailed.

click on the pictures for a larger version.


part 1


part 2

this has not been a good year for my right foot. first my sprained ankle. now, i have suffered 'undisplaced crack fractures of the middle phalanx of the 3rd toe and the base of the distal phalanx of the 4th toe'. as the doctor explained it to me, that means that i have two broken toes - my middle toe has two cracks, one on each side of the toe, while my fourth toe has gotten off comparatively lightly, with just one crack. then there are the little chips of bone which decided to detatch themselves from the said cracks, and carve out a niche of independent existence for themselves. the little wankers.


this would probably win the most indecipherable picture award. if some notional organisation were inclined to give out awards for indecipherable pictures. and if i was so inclined to enter the picture in that competition.

such a competition would, understandably, require comprehensive captions. mine would probably be : "that's my foot. the capital r on the top right hand corner of the x-ray indicates that it's my right foot. and the little yellow arrows were drawn (very helpfully) by the radiologist. presumably he knew how incompetent the doctor was. the doctor was staring blankly at the x-ray for a good minute before i took it upon myself to point the little yellow arrows out to him." i probably wouldn't win the captioning award. assuming, again, that this organisation gave out awards for the best captioned photos, indecipherable or no. but who knows, anything can happen.

anyhow, this is a highly annoying (and painful) development. especially since this means i can't play in my basketball tournament this weekend. the highlight of my year, broken into pieces. little chips, to be precise.

i am very, very disgruntled. at least i get 2 days mc. which gives me time to blog about my disgruntledness.

i haven't blogged in almost a month now. fatherhood will do that to you.

the interim period hasn't changed the fact that some days at work are more taxing than others. i am continually reminded of how fortunate i am to be able to put my five years of legal education to good use. i derive great professional satisfaction whenever i am able to apply my finely honed legal acumen to live problems which are raised by my clients - it affirms a truth that i had, admittedly, often doubted while in law school, i.e. that all the hours of rigorous studying would eventually pay off.

three separate incidents today, that make the job worth doing.

#1 : i received a telephone call from a client who wished me to render some legal advice. the conversation went like this. as close to verbatim that i can remember (though my brain has probably purged the worst parts in some kind of primal self-sustaining measure.)

client : "i have a question for legal advice."

me : "yes?"

client : "i want to give this guy a fine."

me : "yes."

client : "so i type into the computer system he must get a fine. when it print out that time is a detention."

silence

me : "so what's your question?"

client : "so i type into the computer system he must get a fine. when it print out that time is a detention."

me : "yes, and what's your question?"

client : "i just tell you. i type into the computer system a fine, it print out he must start detention today."

me : "but what's the question? what do you want (our legal department) to do?"

client : "i want to know if it's wrong or correct."

me : "you want to give him a fine?"

client : "yes."

me : "and the order printed out says he is going to detention?"

client : "yes."

me : "i think that means it's wrong."

client : "so correct ah? nothing wrong?"

me : "no, i think it's wrong, not correct."

client : "it's wrong ah?"

me : "yes."

client : "why is it wrong? i want to know is it my fault or the computer's fault?"

me : "it's obviously your fault you bloody idiot. i'm not sure whose fault it is. because i wasn't there to see what you typed in."

client slams down phone.

one gets used to the morons that inevitably call up with moronic questions. on the rare occasion, though, one gets to interact with someone who is not just stupid, but who is crushingly, blindingly, stupid. then there are also those that are incredibly annoying. and those who are insufferably rude. this guy had all three characteristics, in spades. someone should place him in a zoo.


#2 : later on in the day, i was asked to approve the following charge. the offender had committed the offence, the particulars of which were detailed as follows : "he, at (place), from (date and time) to (date and time) until he was brought back, an offence is reasonable expected to know."

i dare even the engineers out there to make sense of that. i can just imagine the conversations they have in detention.

offender alpha : "i'm in here for drug consumption. you?"

offender in question : "i'm in here for until i was brought back, an offence is reasonable expected to know."

#3 : then there was this other charge. the offender, in hospital, was guilty of :

"misbehaving in ward 46. [he] entered the female patients' ward & jumped around in the ward. he also often went to the nurses' counter to play with the diet trolley"

mitigating factors : remorseful.

this one i did, eventually, approve. after all, the accused didn't just go to the nurses' counter to play with a trolley. he often did so - and repeat offenders are particularly undeserving of leniency.

maybe i should go off and do a phd.