I've posted before about the amazing architectural and engineering wonders going up in Dubai. Today, Gizmodo links to BurjDubaiSkyscraper.com, which as best as I can tell is a fan site dedicated to the Burj Dubai. The site has some truly stunning photographs of the building under construction. This one in particular really drives home the scale of this monster of a building. Amazing.

Somehow it never occurred to me that there would be music videos for Cut Chemist tracks, but of course there are. Cut Chemist (aka Lucas MacFadden) is the LA turntablist who is probably best known for his work with Ozomatli. Yesterday Coudal Partners linked to a trippy video for (My 1st) Big Break that was filmed with a 360-degree panoramic lens. A clip of this song has been my iPhone ringtone for as long as I can remember. The video is pretty cool, but I can't help but feel it's a bit of a missed opportunity. Take away the panorama lens and what's left reminds me of one of those painfully awful videos from the early days of MTV by a wannabe Fellini or Bergman. The pano lens makes it all worthwhile, though. I love the undulating horizon caused by tipping the camera.

Apparently this other video for What's the Altitude has been viewed a bazillion times on YouTube. At one point Cut Chemist appears in the video as a pharmacist (a joke that works better in the UK, I'm sure), which reminds me of his appearance in Juno as a chemistry teacher.

My favorite, though, is this video for Spat:

Henry and Charlie have been watching old Schoolhouse Rock! and Electric Company videos this summer and this fits right in. Henry thinks this song is hilarious, too. I'll have to see what he thinks of the video.

Kasatochi Volcano is erupting way out in the Aleutian Islands and Alaska Airlines can't fly into Anchorage: "The entire state is unflyable." (via Seattlest.)

Better living through optometry: Big Anime Eyes (via BoingBoing.)

Double-Taker (Snout): "The project consists of an eight-foot (2.5m) long industrial robot arm, costumed to resemble an enormous inchworm or elephant’s trunk, which responds in unexpected ways to the presence and movements of people in its vicinity." (via Urban Prankster.)

Why doesn't the Kool-Aid man shatter when he smashes through a wall with his trakemarked "Oh, YEAH!"? Good question! (via Coudal Partners.)

This video of logic gates made out of dominoes reminds me of The Tinkertoy Computer. (via BB.)

I'm sure it's old news for most of you, but we finally finished watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics last night. Spectacular! As usual, The Big Picture has some stunning pictures. I don't think any single moment matched the flaming arrow in Barcelona, but the sheer spectacle of the Beijing event is unmatched. As always, I do wish the NBC commentators would learn to keep quiet, though. Maybe Comcast will switch CBUT to High Definition in time for Vancouver 2010.

Two of Henry's favorite things...

Lego and sushi together at last. (via gedblog.)

Why the dearth of postings here this time? Well, I spent the last week serving on a jury at the King County Regional Justice Center. Lucky me. The summons arrived when I was in San Francisco, but Kathy was kind enough to email a picture of it to me so I could feel the full joy as soon as possible.

King County Superior Court holds trials in two locations, the King County Courthouse and the Maleng Regional Justice Center. The King County Courthouse is an easy bus ride or 15-minute drive from here and houses two thirds of the county's courtrooms. The RJC is 30 miles south in Kent—a 40 minute drive at best and 75 minute drive in traffic—and houses just a third of the courtrooms. Naturally, I got called to jury duty at the RJC. Again. When I served on a jury in 2003, I was down there, too. Grumble, grumble.

In King County, you must serve for two days or one trial, whichever is longer. On my first day, only one jury was selected and they let the rest of us go home for the day by mid-afternoon. The second day, I was selected for a trial and went through the voir dire process. I started out as juror 25 in a pool of 40. No one was excused for cause, but both attorneys used enough of their peremptory challenges to put me in the jury box.

It was a criminal trial: a young woman charged with residential burglary and 2nd degree assault. She basically pushed her way into her ex-boyfriend's apartment to "catch him in the act" with his new girlfriend. New girlfriend ran into the bedroom to get away and feared for her life as the defendant raged outside the door. When boyfriend's (female) roommate arrived home with a friend, they hauled the defendant outside, but the roommate got stuck outside with her. Somewhere along the line, the defendant managed to dislocate the roommate's shoulder. When a cop arrived moments later, the defendant had the roommate in a headlock. To add a little extra spice, it turns out the defendant and her ex have three kids together, he has spent time in jail, and he completely ignored his summons to appear in this case. Oh, and the defendant had been egged on over several months by the new girlfriend's roommate, who would apparently call to let her know when "she's with him." Curiously, this same roommate had apparently slept with the ex-boyfriend herself. Nifty. With friends like these... Oh, and the defendant drove there that night with her three kids in the car. At least she had someone meet here there to watch the kids.

Ultimately, few of the facts of the case were disputed. Monday morning, we received jury instructions and heard closing arguments. I went into deliberations with an open mind, but honestly expected to be done by lunch. Sadly, that was not to be. One juror in particular saw things a little differently. By Tuesday afternoon, it was clear we were getting nowhere. We ended up finding her guilty of the lesser crimes of criminal trespass and 3rd degree assault (both gross misdemeanors). Though she clearly deserved a guilty verdict, I don't think any of us were particularly happy about it. I can only hope it helps her put some things behind her and move on.

So that's my jury duty story. The judge in my trial was Laura Gene Middaugh, who is up for reelection this year. She certainly has my vote! Reading up after the trial, I learned that there's an interesting story about her woefully unqualified opponent, Matt Hale. It seems Judge Middaugh is married to state Senator Adam Kline. Senator Kline wrote a brutally honest email that offended Washington's "Off-Highway Vehicle" enthusiasts, so they're throwing their support behind Hale in his race against Judge Middaugh. Ah, politics.

Have you suddenly started receiving a "Top 10 News Stories" email from CNN? Or perhaps several? I have, and they've managed to make it through two levels of spam detection unscathed. Watch out, though, because the messages are part of an attempt to deliver a malicious trojan horse. Following any of the links in the message will take you to a page that appears to be CNN.com and asks you to update to a newer version of Flash Player. But it's not really Flash Player that gets installed. Don't fall for it. (via Slashdot.)

This summer, Kathy has rediscovered the wonder of homemade ice cream. It all started this spring with the surprisingly delicious avocado ice cream. Since then, she's made the creamiest most chocolaty chocolate ice cream I've ever tasted, some very tasty vanilla, and more avocado.

She's been looking for a new ice cream recipe, though. Something different and unusual. I think I've found just the thing over at The Meatwave: Bacon Ice Cream! We love bacon. We love ice cream. How can this not be a winner? The recipe sounds great. The bacon is candied with brown sugar and the ice cream base uses brown sugar instead of white. Yum.