to address the court occurred after the jury had been empaneled. Inasmuch as the ensuing exchange cannot reasonably be viewed as an assertion of the right to proceed pro se, we need not resolve the question of whether the invocation of that right after jury selection should be deemed the functional equivalent of a pretrial assertion. 5 . We note that the appellant lodged no contemporaneous objection to this remark (say, by seeking the judge’s recusal then and there or by moving for a mistrial). In all likelihood, then, the argument that he now advances is procedurally defaulted. See United States v. Kimball, 73 F.3d 269, 273 (10th Cir.1995) (reiterating that "the party seeking recusal ... must do so in a timely fashion”); United States v. Brinkworth, 68 F.3d 633, 639 (2d Cir.1995) (<HOLDING>) (citation and internal quotation marks
holding that the defense of lack of venue must be made at the earliest opportunity to plead or it is waived holding that the moving party bears a heavy burden of proving the facts required for disqualification holding that a claim alleging that trial counsel himself or herself acted outside of the bounds of professional competence must be raised at the earliest practicable moment holding that a disqualification motion must be sought at the earliest possible moment after obtaining knowledge of facts demonstrating the basis for such a claim holding that the earliest a loss can be claimed on a lenders title insurance policy is at the time of completion of foreclosure