Useless Conversation

[Yegolev]

That's what I did as foreman.  Next time, don't pick me.

[Trippy]

The first and only time I've served on the a jury (so far) I was the foreman too

Being on a jury was an eye opening experience.

[ghost]

You guys clearly can't play the "racist" well enough to get out of it.   

[Rasix]

I hated my job enough at the time that jury duty was a lot more interesting.

[Paelos]

I hated my job enough at the time that jury duty was a lot more interesting.

Been there.

[Trippy]

You guys clearly can't play the "racist" well enough to get out of it.  

I wanted to serve. I was a lawyer in a previous life.

[ghost]

It would seem unlikely that attorneys would often get chosen for jury duty. 

[Trippy]

They don't.

[JWIV]

I hated my job enough at the time that jury duty was a lot more interesting.

I've been summoned twice and keep hoping they'll pick me for this exact reason.  Sadly, being a white professional in Baltimore is basically an automatic no from defense attorneys.

[Strazos]

It would seem unlikely that attorneys would often get chosen for jury duty. 

Heh, one of my previous bosses got hit for Jury Duty in DC last year...and he use to work for the Justice Department, so...

[Paelos]

I hated my job enough at the time that jury duty was a lot more interesting.

I've been summoned twice and keep hoping they'll pick me for this exact reason.  Sadly, being a white professional in Baltimore is basically an automatic no from defense attorneys.

That also works in Atlanta. Based on my experiences anyway.

[FatuousTwat]

I just got a jury duty summons. I blame you WAP.

This is my second, first was two weeks after I turned 18. It was kind of odd, they pretty much said that they didn't need anyone they called in, and we didn't need to come back.

I doubt I'll every be selected, I have 0 confidence in the police, or the justice system as a whole for that matter.

[Yegolev]

I was actually picked and made foreman of a jury for a murder trial in Atlanta, and I'm as white as Pee Wee Herman.  Then I had to argue down an old black man in overalls who wanted to throw the black defendant into jail because "even if he didn't do this one, he'll do another one".  I was like "that's not how the justice system works".  Sheesh.  People suck.

[Paelos]

I was actually picked and made foreman of a jury for a murder trial in Atlanta, and I'm as white as Pee Wee Herman.  Then I had to argue down an old black man in overalls who wanted to throw the black defendant into jail because "even if he didn't do this one, he'll do another one".  I was like "that's not how the justice system works".  Sheesh.  People suck.

Mind if I ask the demographic of the rest of the jury? Black/white/male/female?

[Salamok]

There have been many great improvements to things at Walt Disney World.

Speaking of Disney World, we are planning a 1st time trip at the end of this year and I am not sure what to do about passes/tickets.  I have heard people mention a fast pass or guided tour option that minimizes the time spent waiting in line but I don't see anything on the Disney website for that, we are looking at 3 kids and 7 adults for 4 or 5 days.  Any tips or suggestions?  Also flying in, is there a difference or preference between Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Orlando Executive Airport (ORL)?

[Sky]

My fiancee was recently up for grand jury duty.

Defense: I see here you're a librarian.
Fiancee: Yes.
Defense: What is your favorite genre?
Fiancee: Mystery.
Defense: Dismissed.

 

[Lantyssa]

That's even better than me telling the prosecution I don't think the State has any business legislating morality in a prostitution case.

[Engels]

I got out of jury duty by telling the latino prosecutor that he shouldn't be going after a small time latino drug dealer, spending tax payer's money on some neighborhood cholo, and that he should be ashamed of himself for going after his own people. I lasted about 3 minutes after that.

[Merusk]

There have been many great improvements to things at Walt Disney World.

Speaking of Disney World, we are planning a 1st time trip at the end of this year and I am not sure what to do about passes/tickets.  I have heard people mention a fast pass or guided tour option that minimizes the time spent waiting in line but I don't see anything on the Disney website for that, we are looking at 3 kids and 7 adults for 4 or 5 days.  Any tips or suggestions?  Also flying in, is there a difference or preference between Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Orlando Executive Airport (ORL)?

Dish, Yeg.  I might actually have the funds to do a trip this year like we'd planned so I want to know what's up.

Sala: The fast passes are at the actual rides.  There's a little kiosk that will give you a printed reciept telling you what time to return.  When you do, there's a special entrance that you take for a much shorter line.   Waiting in the actual line is often times shorter, but you're also standing still in a mass of human chattle for an hour or so.

As for suggestions, go late August/ early September if you can.  Schools are starting back up and the parks are "empty" for a few weeks.  If you're staying on site, there also a few weeks in there that you can get a meal plan included with the cost of the room.  WELL WORTH IT.  If you go in September they'll have Mickey's Not-So-Scary Haloween party on Thursday/ Friday nights (I think) which means the MK closes at about 4:00 instead of the usual 8 or 9pm.  It's an extra cost but the kids get to trick or treat and do stuff in the Magic Kingdom.   It was neat hanging out as the park was closing to watch the families come inside in their costumes.

We had a whole host of other tips somewhere.  It might even be in this thread.

[HaemishM]

I actually enjoy jury duty, even though I only seem to get picked for kiddy diddler cases.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I've only ever been called once and that was for Federal jury duty back when I was a sophomore in college.  I had to decline because I was away at school and since then, I've never been called again.  The husband, OTOH, seems to get called with regularity for some reason.

[Salamok]

As for suggestions, go late August/ early September if you can. 

We are already fixed for a few condos for 12/25-12/31.  I am somewhat worried there is an omfg why didn't you spend new years eve in the park thing I might be missing here.  Tickets via Jet Blue to fly back on 01/02/12 (as opposed to 12/31) are $170 a head cheaper, so part of me says get a hotel for 2 extra nights and watch new years eve fireworks at the park.

[Abagadro]

Last time I was called for jury duty it was in a civil case and one of the parties was a party to a case I worked on for nearly 3 years against them. The substance of the case was nearly identical to the prior one from what I could gather.  I actually asked the judge to talk about it in camera so that I didn't taint the whole jury pool. Lawyers usually have an automatic get out of jury duty card (its kinda weird that they even haul us in there for voir dire) but that was an even easier one.

[Strazos]

Only been called once, but I was working in DC at the time, so...

Luckily, if I ever change my residency to DC/VA (HAH!) work still gives me full pay without charging leave or anything...at least, I think so. 

[Yegolev]

I was actually picked and made foreman of a jury for a murder trial in Atlanta, and I'm as white as Pee Wee Herman.  Then I had to argue down an old black man in overalls who wanted to throw the black defendant into jail because "even if he didn't do this one, he'll do another one".  I was like "that's not how the justice system works".  Sheesh.  People suck.

Mind if I ask the demographic of the rest of the jury? Black/white/male/female?

As best I can recall (1996!), it was a mix of all sorts but more than half white people.  One woman lived near the Bedford Pines area where the shooting took place, another was a business owner.

The entire problem was that the defense had nothing to go on and the cops just picked up the first baked black guy they found, likely by swinging a dead cat.  The single biggest blow to my opinion of law enforcement was the detective on this case.

[Paelos]

Ok that time frame makes more sense. The Olympics.

[SnakeCharmer]

There have been many great improvements to things at Walt Disney World.

Speaking of Disney World, we are planning a 1st time trip at the end of this year and I am not sure what to do about passes/tickets.  I have heard people mention a fast pass or guided tour option that minimizes the time spent waiting in line but I don't see anything on the Disney website for that, we are looking at 3 kids and 7 adults for 4 or 5 days.  Any tips or suggestions?  Also flying in, is there a difference or preference between Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Orlando Executive Airport (ORL)?

Best advice I can give regarding Disney:  Rent a house for the week.  For 600-1K per week (or more if you want), you get your own house about 15-30 minutes away, generally with a pool, and best of all - a kitchen.  Buy groceries and cook food there, maybe go out to eat one or two nights just to do it.  Look here or vrbo for rentals.  I'm sure there's others, but this is what we used this year.

e:  Look at this...5 BR and 4.5 baths, and a pool, AND 15 minutes from Disney.  110-150 per night depending on the season.

[Chimpy]

Just because I have to interject this into any Disney related conversation: Fuck the Rat.

[Yegolev]

WDW Separate Post.

We are going back to WDW at the end of Oct for the Not So Scary party, and the boy will trick-or-treat in the Magic Kingdom instead of that posh subdivision we discovered about ten minutes away from our house.  I'll be there Oct 28-Nov 1, for the record.

I drive in (ATL in the house!) so I'm no help on airports.  I did figure out a back door into WDW so we now get there 20-30 minutes quicker.  Basically get off the turnpike at the Winter Park exit and take a left on highway 553 (I think) and you will wind your way into the back entrance and pop out behind Space Mountain.

They aren't done with the Magic Kingdom addition yet, but they have done a few other things.  One is that Pooh's Corner has been moved into the queue line for the Pooh ride.  So what happens now is that the parents stand in line while the kids play with an assortment of things along the way.  There are pumps to grow pumpkins in Rabbit's garden, and Pooh's tree has been moved over so kids can still play in it.  There is also a new "honey wall" nearer to the original ride queue.  This is a screen which is touch-sensitive and you can wipe away the honey to see a picture.  It's pretty neat.  The FastPass line avoids all of this, which is a trend across all of the ones I have seen.

The Haunted Mansion queue has also been updated like this.  The Haunted Mansion loads passengers at a ridiculous rate and therefore does not have a FassPass, but you can choose the old line (straight into the building) or take the new line through a graveyard with interesting things to play with.  Also more tombstone jokes, which are a pet favorite of mine.

Space Mountain now has short video games in the standby queue line.  There are control buttons embedded in the left railing (standby queue only) and large screens where four people can play together.  They are enough of a diversion that the line only moves forward when the games end.  There are at least three in the rotation, probably more like five, so it's not the same one over and over.

The light show on Cinderella's Castle is now officially Fucking Awesome.  I don't think I can even describe it properly.  They did it twice on the late-opening nights, too, although I didn't see it when we stayed in MK until 2am.  Yes, I said 2am.  MK made me its bitch.

You can get the pineapple ice cream in more places than just that kiosk in Adventure Land now!  It comes out of a spigot in the Polynesian!

Peter Pan still sucks and I don't know why anyone rides it.  We did that one first, at 0805 on the first morning, and avoided that shit for the rest of the time.  But somehow, it's a small world had ridiculously short wait times, no more than 15 minutes, so we rode that two or three times.  Also that goddamned Journey Into Imagination ride, what a piece of shit.  I really wanted to go to Captain EO since I have never seen that, but it wasn't in the cards this time.

I'm in the minority here, but Soarin' is stupid.

What does not suck is Star Tours II.  I didn't do the math since I forget all of my statistics, but I'm told there are 54 variants of the ride.  We rode it three times and it was different each time, although we visited Hoth twice, the Gungan city, a Tatooine pod race, and an asteroid belt where Jango was trying to kill us.  You really will need to ride this thing multiple times.  The queue line has also been revamped, no more "C3PO in pieces" but with a joke-cracking security droid that made us laugh a few times.  The old Paul Reubens pilot robot is now enshrined in the queue with a "defective" sticker on it.  Occasionally it says lines from the old ride, but you have to be close to hear.

The LEGO Store is now double the old size.  That's pretty much all I need to say.

In Pirates, Davey Jones has been replaced by Blackbeard.  I'm OK with this.

Now for strategic and tactical advice.  We get the Park Hopper ticket which I think is renamed Magic Your Way or something, but it's a ticket that lets you into MK, EPCOT, AK, and Studios any time.  So we do things like do EPCOT for a morning and then go to MK to eat in the Crystal Palace.  The "And More" version also includes water parks and Quest, but since you can lose an entire day in either Quest (No-coin classic arcade games and pinball? Yes, please.) or Blizzard Beach I'm not sure it's a great idea if you plan properly... although I don't know what a Quest or BB ticket goes for.  I could have saved a bit by only getting the and-more part on the one day we actually did BB and Quest.

FastPass works like Merusk said.  You put your ticket into a machine and get a pass with a time window on it.  You can only have one at a time per ticket.  The thing most people don't know is that 95% of the time you can use it past the window, the exception being cases like when Toy Story is 75 minutes in standby and the cast member might turn you away.  Be sure to note the FastPass time on the board because sometimes it might be better to get into the standby line, which sometimes moves more quickly than the board indicates.

If you have an iPhone/Android, look for an app called WDW Lines.  It gives a good estimate of line times across the park.  You do need to register on a web site to get full use from it.  While I was there, I sent a text MAGIC to 2777 (VZW Android) and got a link to an official app which did more or less the same thing.  It wasn't an awesome app, and only worked fully when it geo-located you in the park, but it does have a listing of character appearances, which is paramount to any kid with an autograph book.

I have not done any guided tour but those are available, even one which takes you into the tunnels under MK.  While we were there, we saw a rich old woman in a wheelchair who apparently had hired her own personal cast member, so if you're fucking loaded the sky's the limit it seems.

SnakeCharmer's advice is very sound and cost-effective.  I choose the opposite route since staying on WDW property confers early and late park hours access, both of which have less crowding.  In fact, I stayed at the Poly ($$$$) this last visit just so we could get into MK as quickly as possible.  When we stayed until 2am, my son got five autographs in less than an hour, including the elusive Donald Duck.  They didn't use wristbands this time for the Extra Magic (I think it's called that in the evening) hours, instead we flashed our room keys in order to board each ride, which I found more inconvenient.  Protip: the Astro-Orbiter line is still retarded at 11pm with resort-only attendance.  I look forward to the return of paying an extra $100 to clear out even more after-hours guests.

If you have more questions, feel free.

[Strazos]

Wow, you sure like you some WDW.  

Went to DL - Paris a few years ago...was sort of meh, but at least the lines were non-existent.

EDIT: To be clear, I only went because we had free tickets.

[IainC]

Wow, you sure like you some WDW.  

Went to DL - Paris a few years ago...was sort of meh, but at least the lines were non-existent.

EDIT: To be clear, I only went because we had free tickets.

We had a company shindig at Euro Disney for our works Christmas party. it was fantastic because after 6pm they threw all the proles out and it was just us in the park (with all the  parades and events still running) so we could just walk up to any ride and get on it. it took longer to navigate the empty crush barrier mazes than it did to wait in line. Most of the time we could just stay on the ride when it finished for a second go if we wanted.

I went there a couple of times on other occasions where we didn't have exclusive access (our company used to hold all hands meetings in one of the theme hotels on the park then hand out tickets to the rest of the park afterwards) and I generally reached my people tolerance within a few minutes.

The 'Irish pub' in the park where the staff get up on the bar every hour or so and say in thick French accents 'Arr it is a mighty craic so it is!' before doing some dancing was hilarious though.

[Bunk]

I've been to Universal in Florida twice now where they have opened the park to convention goers/exhibitors only, and I really don't think I'd ever be able to go to a park during normal hours again. It's a cool feeling to finish a ride you thought was really awesome, turn around and be back on it five minutes later.

[ghost]

We're taking the kids to Disney in September.  They'll be 2.75 and 1 at the time.  I'm not optimistic at this point.   The older boy is trantrum fest right now. 

[Bunk]

That does seem kind of early, and I'm not really sure of the point. We went when I was eight and my sister was three. I have quite a few memories from the trip, but my sister doesn't recall any of it.

[Rasix]

We're taking the kids to Disney in September.  They'll be 2.75 and 1 at the time.  I'm not optimistic at this point.   The older boy is trantrum fest right now. 

That sounds like misery.  What can you actually do in Disney with a bunch of sprogs too wee to ride the rides?