Muppets, Murder, and Other Mayhem

So much I want to write about, so little time. I’ve spent the last 10 days hoping I’d get a chance to blog, and I just haven’t. I even started to write a movie review at one point, but barely got a few sentences in before I reluctantly abandoned it. There are just too many demands. It’s sad that something inevitably has to give, even when that thing is very important to you. I do think blogging is worthwhile, at least for my own sake. It’s pretty much the only kind of journal-keeping I do nowadays, and I think journal-keeping is very important. So, I’m always a bit sad that it doesn’t happen more often.

In case I never get a chance to write more about them, I had hoped to critique both The Greatest Movie Ever Sold and The Muppets. The former was good, about three out of four stars. The latter I took Peter and Eddie to on opening day, just the three of us. The kids weren’t as captivated by it as I’d hoped. I think it might appeal a lot more to adults who remember with some degree of detail the original Muppet movies and The Muppet Show from television (not to be confused with Muppet Babies).

I wanted to write about Thanksgiving, but the further away from it we get, the less relevant it seems to do so. Melanie covered it well with photographs. There are thoughts and stories I wanted to share of my own, but those will have to wait. Indefinitely.

On Friday, we went to Wild Adventures. It’s an amusement park located almost 2 hours from Tallahassee. A friend of Melanie’s assured us you could get there in roughly 45 minutes, but there’s no way that’s true. Melanie and I bought our family an annual pass to Wild Adventures, even though we had never been there. It actually was quite cheap, and we liked the idea of having an amusement park that is relatively close to us. In short, it’s a much cheaper, much less crowded, and much easier to get to version of Disney World. Except it’s nowhere near as splendid and magical as Disney World. No surprise, of course. Even so, it’s something we can afford to do, and I feel a lot safer driving our questionably reliable van only 2 hours rather than 4 or 5. I’m pleased to say that, despite some mixed feelings during the first couple of hours of our visit to Wild Adventures, we’re all looking very much forward to going back.

And that brings us to this week. Yesterday, I had to go in for jury selection. It was the first time in my life that I’ve ever received a jury summons. I’d heard people say that, as a philosopher, I was unlikely to be chosen to serve on a jury. But guess what? I have been chosen. Or, at least not eliminated, which by default means that I am on the official jury. I do feel like serving on a jury is an honorable thing to do, but I have felt a bit depressed about being selected. First of all, it causes some (although minimal) interruption to my schooling. As an instructor, I’ll have to cancel one of the last few class meetings of the semester, and that screws things up a bit. I’m also a bit apprehensive about the fact that I’ll be serving as a juror on a murder trial. A first degree (i.e. premeditated) murder case. Heavy stuff. I am fearful that it will be quite emotionally disturbing. I don’t look forward to reviewing evidence, etc. Based on what little I know at this point, it could be a much more disturbing case than I expect it to be. No children involved, for example. But a murder case just seems like a very big deal. Shouldn’t you have to serve on a jury for a burglary trial or something before you’re allowed to serve on a jury for a murder trial? Sheesh.

So that’s my life at the moment.