Thursday, March 29, 2007

S'il Vous Plaît...

Greetings, reader! Just letting you know that if you read this blog (it has been suggested that I refer to it simply as a "blah," but I shall disregard said suggestion for the time being), and if I am aware that you read this blog (which is to say that you comment on my posts), there is a very good chance that I also read your blog. I like reading your blog, so much so that I am disappointed (sometimes to the point of tears) when I check your site only to find that it has not been updated since the last time I checked it. Recently, however, I've been using Google Reader (which can be found at google.com/reader), one of a number of handy tools available gratis from the bounty of the the inter-nets, which allows me to check any number of blogs for new updates simultaneously. Yes, I know that something like this has been available for quite some time, I'm afraid I'm something of a late adopter of new technologies. However, there are a few blogs which I enjoy which do not allow me to subscribe to their feed (I only vaguely know what that even means), perhaps unbeknownst to their creators. And so, dear reader, my request to you is simple: please allow access to your site feed, so that I may more readily read your written ramblings. I don't know much about this stuff, but I know that in blogger you can do so by selecting your blog's "Settings" tab, then click on "Site Feed," click "Switch to Advanced Mode," and then change all the drawbars to read "Full." You can even write a little footer that will show up in my reader at the bottom of each post, if you so desire.

Also, I'm thinking of updating my links (on the right side of the page) as well as my Google Reader account, so if you have a blog and aren't sure if I read it, either drop me a link in the comments, or more privately by email (dcous at hotmail dot com), and let me know if you'd like me to link to you or not link to you or whatever (I don't think that this blog attracts an unsavory element, if that's your concern, it barely attracts anyone at all). Thanks for blogging, it's good to hear from you in one way or another. If you're reading this and don't know me personally, that's kind of weird. Still, feel free to post a link to your blog, you weirdo you.

Oh yes, one more thing: I'm going to be spending the weekend pretending to be a monk in Kentucky, so if anyone needs to get ahold of me, you're probably out of luck. When I get back I'll probably regale you with tales of my harrowing three-day encounter with prayer and (oh the humanity) celibacy.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

"SQUEEZE every last drop out of those insolent, musical peasants."

Bonjour, mes amis! Il y a trop longtemps, non? Bon.
As I was saying, it's been too long. Not to worry though, you haven't missed a thing, because nothing has happened. I need to finally knuckle down and do my taxes, which may be a bit more of a pain than in years past, since I'm no longer a student. I just hope I don't actually owe anything. Reens has graciously agreed to give me a hand with it this evening, which is good, since I've never actually done my own taxes. I don't expect that it'll be that hard, but I've been sort of dreading it because it's harder to read anything issued by the Internal Revenue Service (a pretty euphemistic name for the Department for the External Collection of Internal Funds, if you ask me) than it is to slog through Beowulf in its original Anglo-Saxon (believe me, I've actually tried). Perhaps its because to the layman such as myself, it all seems arbitrarily too complicated. Of course, it's not actually arbitrary, the complexity comes from there being a tax on virtually anything imagineable, and a carefully written (if still practically unintelligible) series of loopholes for each tax. Yay, lobbyists. Here's an actual selection from the instructions to Form W-9, which I had to deal with at work:

Payments that may be subject to backup withholding include interest, dividends, broker and barter exchange transactions, rents, royalties, nonemployee pay, and certain payments from fishing boat operators [emphasis mine].

What's with the specific mention of fishing boat operators? I have no idea. I'm guessing that the only people who actually know the answer to that question are a handful of salty old sea dogs, their attorneys (yes, even salty old sea dogs have lawyers these days), a Bhuddist monk who stumbled accross the meaning of U.S. tax law while in a years-long meditative trance, and the anonymous nihilist poet who actually writes all of this garbage, whose impressive oeuvre includes thousands of pages of nonsense which were either accidentally or maliciously incorporated into tax legislation. A few pages later on the form, you find this:

Other payments [sic]. You must give your correct TIN, but you do not have to sign the certification unless you have been notified that you have previously given an incorrect TIN. “Other payments” include payments made in the course of the requester’s trade or business for rents, royalties, goods (other than bills for merchandise), medical and health care services (including payments to corporations), payments to a nonemployee for services, payments to certain fishing boat crew members and fishermen, and gross proceeds paid to attorneys (including payments to corporations) [emphasis mine].

What? Why are payments involving fishing boats different than other payments to "nonemployees"? IS there even a "why"? Keep in mind that the above excerpts were from the four pages of unintelligible instructions on how to fill out a one-page form, which contained only spaces for your Name, Tax Identification Number (TIN), and "Signature of U.S. Person, including citizens of the U.S. and those with Resident Alien status." There was an entire page of possible but not definite situations where you might not have to provide a signature at the bottom of the form, in the event that you are even required to fill it out at all. Anyways, if you need me I'll be meditating on the fact that because the earth is round, there is actually sky beneath my feet. After meditating on that for a while, I'll use the positive energy from the life-force of the birds which are without doubt flying through the sky beneath me to levitate, while at the same time visualizing in my mind each individual drop of ink on each page of my tax forms, and in that transient state the ink and I shall be as one mind, and shall have at one time all knowledge of one another. The ink shall understand my purpose for being, and I shall understand the ink's purpose for being, and when I awake from that trance I shall know how to prepare my taxes, thus validating the ink's existence. And then, Nirvana.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Mad as a March Hare

It should come as no surprise to you (and therefore it probably won't) that I'm generally and in most cases quite specifically opposed to capital punishment, which I believe is defined as the execution of criminals (or perhaps in some few cases the wrongly accused) by dropping the top portion of a greco-roman style column onto their heads. I have no idea if this particular method was ever common (or even for that matter employed so frequently as to be called "rare"), but I'm against it, and other less dramatic forms of execution as well. But as we (the royal "we") have said, you are doubtless already aware of this, and the purpose of this post is actually to inform you (because I am sure that you desire nothing more than to know) of one particular offence for which I am in fact in favor of capital punishment, even as above defined, and that is the use of the grocery isle marked "12 items or fewer" to purchase any number of items greater than 12.

And you thought I was going to talk about something serious. Silly you.

Anyways, having moved on from the thought of a large stone falling on the head of a woman who for all I know might honestly be unable (poor soul) to count the groceries in her cart, and also having used a paragraph break (which is not my custom), I shall move on. I've had a strange feeling of impending doom over the last day or two, and the reason for it (if indeed there is one) completely escapes me. I rather doubt that it has anything to do with the approaching Ides (I'm not very superstitious, or even well-read), but I suppose that it's not impossible. It's just not probable, that's all. Well, I've rambled enough for now. I apologize for the recent lapse in posts, as well as for the seemingly endless lack of substance in what few posts there are. I'll figure out something interesting to say at some point, I suppose I owe you one for reading this rubbish at all. It's supposed to rain today, so keep your parapluie close at hand.