Thief Part II

At the beginning of the month, I mentioned the thief who stole a few hundred designs and made a bunch of shops out of them. I contacted the powers-that-be, and the thief's shops were deleted. Until two weeks later, when she re-created them all. So, I jumped through all the hoops again. She seems to have been deleted, or mostly deleted. Why they don't just delete her account is beyond me. I guess when I open my t-shirt printing company, I can deal with thieves in the way I'd like... with my awesome telekinetic powers. (Shudder at *that* thought, dear reader! What a barren wasteland it would be if I had anything approaching telekinetic powers.)

Nothing too exciting beyond that. Working on two shops of ours, plus the off-site, plus another one with one of my online buddies... keeping busy, to say the least. That's good, because we can't go outside. Burst into flames quicker than if someone had pyrokinetic powers. (Anybody see a theme here?)

Oh! On the plus side, I've only had about three headaches this month. No migraines. Hooray for experimental drugs!

Rhymes With "Done With Jury Duty"

Two sleeping pills taken around 9pm (that did nothing), up at 6 (I slept a little. Deb didn't sleep at all.), Deb dropped me off at the court a little after 7 with two books in hand. At about 8:30, they called a bunch of people up. I wasn't one of them. The remainder were told it could be "a few hours" before we knew whether they'd need any of us or not. 10:30 rolled around, and we were excused.

The plus (other than being excused): there was a bank of computers in the room. They were ancient, but they had internet access. I was able to e-mail Deb to tell her I was all done. (Much better than calling someone else to e-mail her to tell her to come get me.)

The annoying: The summons thing, as well as the website used to register, specifically say how you should dress. No jeans, no rubber sandals, no t-shirt. One guy had all three, and he got selected to be on the jury. I guess I'd make a pretty shitty judge, because I'd send him home and make him come back again and again until he learned how to read. Actually, if he did it more than once I'd find him in contempt. Oh! And some woman showed up at 8:30, asking for a note to prove that she'd been there. Timmy the jury greeter pleasantly told her that she was supposed to have been there at 7:30, so he couldn't do anything for her. He sent her to see someone else, but I hope they didn't help her. (I'd have found her in contempt, too.)

That's pretty much it, other than lunch and a nap. I only read one book, and didn't get to curse at anybody. I'd stick my head out the window and curse at random people, but it's too hot to open the window. Maybe I'll just put a sign up.

Rhymes With "Truck"

Those of you keeping score at home may recall that prior to our trip to Vegas, I received a jury summons. Said summons was postponed so we could go on said trip. Today was the day I found out whether I had to go or not. Since I'm still cursing, you can probably guess the answer to that little mystery. There were nine juror groups. Guess how many were selected to serve? One. Mine.

So... I have to be there at 7:30. AM. (Fucking diurnals. I'd love to sue the legal system for discrimination against people who have given up the asinine tradition of worshiping the sun god.) I have to wear pants. Not jeans. Pants. Forecast high for tomorrow? 102-ish. I'll be the juror drowning in my own sweat. Hey, there's an idea! I'll pass out, get rushed to the hospital, and then sue the court system.

Oh! I nearly forgot. There's no place to park. Well, there's no place to park for free. The court doesn't provide parking, but you can get your parking validated for a "reduced" fee. Gee, thanks for that, Pima county!

So, my plan is to go there as if I have Tourette's. I'll use my New York-honed cursing skills to their fullest as a response to every question. I'm working on a facial tic now for that extra-special touch.

To Catch A Thief

Deb found something interesting the other day while browsing through designs in the CafePress marketplace. Specifically, one of our designs was in the "newest arrivals" category. The reason that was odd was because that particular image has been up since mid-2005. It really wasn't "new" by any definition. It was, however, newly stolen. Someone decided to copy it and use it as her own. After a little digging, it turned out that she did that more than once. Not to our images (thankfully), but to several hundred other people.

After some moderate to severe cursing, I sprang into action. (Well, I typed into action. My keyboard is a bit springy, so the saying still applies.) I fired off e-mails to other shopkeepers who had things stolen, and even made a phone call! (Yes, it was that important.) It took two days, but the thief's account was completely deleted. Hundreds of designers were protected from a conscienceless thief. Even if they didn't even know about it.

I've tilted at a lot of windmills in my day, but this one made me feel good. The response, while not as swift as I would have liked, was the appropriate one. And despite receiving one canned response, the other human-crafted response more than made up for it. Hell, just the fact that a windmill was successfully tilted made me happy.