It’s not looking good for future “This is what I did at Jury Duty” posts. I called the number I was instructed to on the notification sheet, and was informed to call back tomorrow at noon to find out if I should report at 1:30pm. To paraphrase, “But you probably won’t, because you’ll already be at your place of work.”

Okaaaaay. I’ll call back at noon, meanwhile, here’s hoping for a lazy day of resume submissions, laundry, and a few less chapters of Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire then I’d be reading if I’d been told to report bright and sunshine early.

I’m a little peeved.

I was aware that someone was claiming to have read the manuscript for the forthcoming final Harry Potter novel (it’s in the news), but I never figured reading the article would reveal that information. I avoided the article for the fear of being spoiled. In the end, it was my fault for clicking to read a blog title on the article that I was, in fact, spoiled — I never thought a blogger would either be that clueless, or that much of an asshole, to discuss the situation while at the same time posting the spoilers without so much as a warning. I mean, it’s possible to discuss the possibility of someone reading the book while not revealing the information he’s bragging about, right?

I don’t know who I’m more pissed at — me, for reading his blog, or him, for not exercising some common sense.

I won’t provide a link — I don’t want you to be a spoiled, too. But if you read Blogtimore.com, DO NOT click on “Below the Fold.”

I got home about 10:30ish Monday night. An hour later …

Armed robbery // A deliverywoman for Domino’s Pizza in the first block of Cranbrook Road was about to deliver food to the occupants of a dwelling in the first block of Quiet Stream Court about 11:30 p.m. Monday when she was robbed of $20 by two men, one armed with a handgun.

Not that I knew this happened until Geisha e-mailed this clip to me this morning, however.

I used to be an assistant manager at that Domino’s Pizza, years and years ago, when I was living in Towson. In fact, that store moved to Cranbrook Road from it’s old location in an industrial warehouse off Deereco (that old place had a serious rodent infection, I never ate food there because, seriously, it had a really bad rodent problem) and the day we opened the new location, I actually took the first delivery ever. I know, no one finds this as interesting as I do.

The scary thing, for me, is that I live on the first block of Quiet Stream Court. I mean, I don’t know that Quiet Stream can really be divided into blocks — it’s one long street that connects on one end to Cranbrook, and the other to Padonia. There are four branching streets. But, if you’re going to break it up into blocks, it makes sense I’m in the first one given my building number.

Knock on wood, I’ve never been robbed in way too many years of pizza delivery. The most trouble I’ve ever had at the Franchise (which is in fact, a Domino’s Pizza, located north of this corporate location) or the Indy (which does deliver to the Cranbrook area) is my fellow drivers and being stiffed. Of course, robbery is a risk of the job, just as much as traffic accidents and stiffing. Here’s hoping it never happens to me.

(Christ, how funny would it be to get robbed by my neighbors? “Hey, don’t you live in Apartment D? Hey, don’t you have that fucking dog? You better shoot me now, motherfucker, because if you don’t, I’m going into my apartment, getting my gun — .45, motherfucker! — and I’m going to fucking pop a cap into your ass and your dog’s ass!!!!”

Who am I kidding? I’d never give him advanced notice. “Um, hon, our next door neighbor is at the door and wants his money back that you robbed for him. By the way, his gun is a lot bigger than yours!”)

Seriously, though, there are some shady characters in the next building over. I don’t think they’d be stupid enough to rob anyone (if any of the residents were randomly questioned by the police about a lanky dude with a shaggy beard, everyone’d know who they meant and what building he was in), but you never know.

I don’t think it’s a secret that, when it comes to computer related things, I’m a bit of a doof. “Defrag my computer … you mean, with a hand grenade?” But I’m not so computer unsavy that I don’t know it’s important to protect my needed files — music, word documents, photos — with IDrive-E, an industry leading consumer online backup service. IDrive-E is free up to two gigabytes, secure with a 256-bit AES, and fast (like, “Superman v Speeding Train” fast).

Their mission is to save the world … one computer at a time. I wonder if they know how much difficulty they’re going to have with me. I fear for their tech support guys. “Well, he knows it isn’t a cup holder, but that’s about all he’s got going for him…”

THIS IS A PAID POST.