Bruner Blog

Loyal Bruner Blog readers may recall a year ago (almost exactly) I blogged about being issued a traffic ticket for running two red lights on my bicycle. Ridiculous, yes, but technically against the law. The two lights I allegedly ran were one after the other, so the evil cop lady gave me two tickets.

My understanding was that the second ticket was effectively twice the cost of the first ticket, as it was a second infraction, with the total fine for the two, were I to have pleaded guilty, would have been over $500.

So, instead, I pleaded guilty to the one, sending in $200 by mail, and not guilty to the other. My original court date was roughly six months after the incident, but I had to reschedule it, due to business travel. (I learned that, much like trying to postpone jury duty, while it is virtually impossible to get any such civil servant on the phone to answer questions, if you appear in person, they will process your request for a postponement in about a minute with no added unpleasantness.

The rescheduled court date came up last month, but again I had a business travel conflict. This time, however, I didn’t get my shit together in advance and in the end simply blew off the court appearance. I fully intended to go down to the traffic court as soon as I was back in town, but a colleague lit a fire under my ass by predicting that there would be a bench warrant out for my arrest, due to my non-appearance. Yikes.

So I went in immediately after returning from my trip, and went to the information counter at the traffic court and explained the situation, calling the trip a “business emergency,” whatever that is. The clerk was matter-of-fact about the non-appearance, to my relief, and said I’d have to put down a $40 deposit to secure a new court date, which I would be refunded if I was found not guilty. I realized I didn’t have $40 in cash (credit cards not accepted), so I told him I’d have to run to an ATM and be back.

“You don’t have any cash?” he inquired, his tone changing to get my attention that we were now having a different conversation. It transpired that he could see from his computer that the cop who had issued the tickets was no longer on the force, meaning the case would automatically be dismissed. If I was prepared to scratch his back, metaphorically speaking, he could get me on that day’s docket, saving me the trouble of coming back for a future hearing date. In fact, it was coincidentally 10:25am and the court started proceedings at 10:30. Well worth the $10 I did have in my wallet.

As he prophesied, I was out of there 30 minutes later a free man. God bless Amerika.

Since the original incident, greater scofflaws than me have advised that you should always protest a traffic ticket, as the case is automatically dismissed if the cop doesn’t make an appearance. One friend said — and I have no idea whether he’s right or not, and for the record I’m also not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice, just a stupid blog post — that cops have to make traffic court appearances on their personal time, not working hours, so obviously no cop has any interest in actually making the appearance, as no one wants to show up in court on a day off.

It’s been either too cold or wet to ride much recently, but I did ride today, and recalling this whole incident brought a smile to my face as I blew through that same light at 114th Street this evening.

NOTE: See an update to this post below.

Last week, passing posters for “Blades of Glory,” a friend and I agreed Will Ferrell had jumped the shark with this film and joined the ranks of Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy who were greatly talented comic actors who had sold out and would pursue a long, slow trajectory of critical, if not box office poison. The poster alone conveyed to us that it would be an awful one-joke movie.

Then I saw a clip of the film on Letterman Friday night and it looked funny enough that I was curious, so I went to see what the rating for it was on IMDB. I admit I put a lot of weight in the IMDB user-generated ratings. To my surprise, IMDB claimed around midnight on Friday/Saturday that the film was still “awaiting five votes.”

I figured that maybe it’s not really a real-time vote but that they hold off over night or for the first 24 hours after a film’s release before posting the votes to make sure they have a valid sample of something. But as of this posting, it’s 9pm EST Sunday night, more than 48 hours after the film has opened, and the entry still says “awaiting five votes” (click the thumbnail picture to see the entry with the date in the lower right corner). I note that IMDB meanwhile does have up to date that the film was the top box office earner of the weekend, and it shows hundreds of votes for other films that opened this weekend. Yet somehow the most popular film of the weekend hasn’t yet garnered five people to rate it on one of the web’s most popular movie sites? That doesn’t smell right.

Here’s my theory, informed by nothing more than a paranoid conspiracy about how corporations are ready to whore themselves for filthy lucre: the movie company, anticipating bad reviews, paid off IMDB to hold back releasing the consumer score till after the opening weekend.

Just one blogger’s opinion, but I’m ready to eat my hat if by Monday morning the site doesn’t miraculously have a review with hundreds of entries for the movie, which in all likelihood will be lucky if it’s as high as 6/10. Stay tuned for an update.

UPDATE:
Hmmm. So here it is Monday morning, and I see the entry still says “awaiting five votes.” Perhaps it’s less about corporate treachery and more about some snafu. Dunno.

LATER THAT SAME DAY…
Interesting… So, it’s now 7:15pm EST Monday, and I see that IMDB finally has votes for “Blades of Glory”: a failing grade of 5.8 with 783 votes. Gee, no votes all weekend, and then several hundred votes saying the movie sucks eggs. Just like I thought. Coincidence?