Here I am at Kate Mantilini's, savoring the charms of a sweet corn chowder
wafting in from the left of the modem port :-p
I'm here not to celebrate, but to contemplate the bureaucratic snafu I might
or might not just have tangled with. I had to come to LA tonight to appear
for arraignment on a moving violation on Hill Street. I thought it would be
an open-and-shut case, but no, just because I had to appear a month after
the ticket *just* to set a date five months later where I could learn the
actual charges and penalties before me, didn't mean this was a trial.
Instead, I paid $325 ($120 fine + 170% in taxes + $1 for night court) so
that yet further into the future I may once face my accuser.
Not that it'll do me any good on Friday Oct 16th at 1:30 in Division 67.
After all, my corroborating witnesses are a Frenchman and a Dane, and even
lamuni.org won't subpoena a pair of foreign forks for my convenience :-)
No, I think I'm mainly buying the spectacle and entertainment I deserve.
[Mmmmm that's good chowder. Whole kernels, creamy but not cloying, and huge
chunks of ham -- topped by handmade oyster crackers. I can't imagine what
this diner's Osso Bucco will be like. And to think all these years I was
paying *Jerry's* outrageous diner prices for *un*inspired food late
nights...]
My actual position is that I was over the 65 limit, but not even close to
95mph (and hence a lower fine). Unfortunately it's my word and my clean
6-year Maryland record and not much else.
Oh well, on to better things... back to planning that Open House at my new
apartment on Sat Sept 26th. All FoRKs and otherwise are duly invited to what
promises to be a spectacularly well-lubricated coming out party :-)
Giddy and poorer,
Rohit
PS. I take it I don't need to do the utility curve defense to FoRK again
that so horrifies ejw (as a passenger, if not an economist): that at
approximately 2 cents a mile, accumulated speeding tickets trade off nicely
against the reduction in time at even a minimal time-value of money like
$5/hr: 5% increase in cost per mile for a 15% increase in speed... isn't
rationalization fun!?