How very Appealing

Justice William W. Bedsworth is my best friend, OK he's a pen pal, uh ... would you believe we've exchanged emails a couple of times!? Anyhoo, he's an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal. He writes a blawg called A Criminal Waste of Space. His latest offering contains:

Ms. Doe(4) closed the book on Chopin and Haydn one day and fired up the computer for a round of monster-battling, only to receive the disconcerting news that her virtual spouse had divorced her avatar. Divorced! Without warning!

No lipstick on the collar, no long unexplained business trips, no emotional withdrawal, no couples counseling, nothing! The sonofagun just said, “I divorce you,”(5) and moved on. Without explanation. Just left her there to fight the monsters alone.

She was, of course, distraught. Divorce is always difficult. And this one was greatly complicated by the whole monster thing.(6) Apparently unable to retain a virtual Gloria Allred, Ms. Doe released her own statement: “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry.”(7)

But as commonplace as her public statement might have been, Ms. Doe’s revenge was a tour de force of imagination befitting someone with a background in monster eradication. Using login information she obtained when their characters were happily married – virtually – Ms. Doe logged in with her virtual husband’s password and caused his avatar to walk in front of a truck.

Yep. Flattened him. Dead before the virtual paramedics arrived.

Read the whole thing, the Beds Notes alone are worth the price of admission.

And speaking of The California Court of Appeal, (notice the lack of an 's' on Appeal, man that's a tough system!), Beds' colleague is the Presiding Justice David G. Sills who recently saw red, but couldn't see the cameras, or maybe it was en camera. Well, it might as well have been en camera because the city didn't bother to send an attorney:

California Appeals Court Rejects Attempt to Unpublish Red Light Camera Decision
Decision overturning California red light camera ticket remains final and could affect cities throughout the state.

[...]
The district attorney was properly served with all briefs and notices required during the course of the court's proceedings, but Fletcher insisted that the city attorney's office had sole jurisdiction over the matter. Neither party showed up for proceedings before the appellate division. In a pair of letters to defendant Thomas Fischetti prior to his trial, the city attorney's office denied that it had jurisdiction over his case.

"The district attorney's office is charged with prosecution of California Vehicle Code violations," Deputy City Attorney Laura A. Rossini wrote on March 13, 2008.

"As we discussed on the telephone, the Santa Ana City Attorney's Office is not the prosecuting agency for this citation and therefore does not have authority to dismiss it," Rossini wrote in a second letter dated March 27.

Now INAL, but even I know that if you don't show up for your court date there are bound to be consequences! The DA & the CA were AWOL!? I'm LOL!