fun with taxes

$938, damn, now that’s a refund

I guess it pays to have your per hour cut in half halfway through the year, and then to have your hours cut in half again 3 months later, then throw tuition on top of it. Or maybe it really just sucks. =)

Also, efile makes a funny:

Please correct the following error(s)

You must be a resident of California during the entire year of 2004.

No problem, just give me a little time machine, and the power to change the goldman school’s decision…. *sigh*

On the theme of gay marriage…

posted an interesting reference to http://www.atwoodkansas.com/ [edit, the site appears to have been reclaimed by the city in question, what I first saw on the site is below, and can be found at http://www.dansworld.net/]

Basically, it’s the story of a homo who did tried to bring atwood into the information age, then said ‘fuck it, let the tumbleweeds have this podunk wasteland’.

pre-removal site content under cut, sorry, lost the formatting, can’t help it

An atypical day in my life

Sometime around 5:30a I wandered out to the couch and went back to sleep. This means that I missed my 6:15a alarm, and didn’t get up until about 7:30. Gymnastics starts at 8, and is at least 45 minutes from home. &@#$@!!! So, I got there at about 8:35. Just in time to walk in on the class doing back tucks. I spent like a minute, maybe a minute and a half warming up, then went straight into back tucks. First with a belt and rope held by the instructor, then with my classmates spotting me. And I did better than several of them (yay!) but, of course, nowhere near the point where I’d be comfortable doing it unspotted. Dave, the tall guy, accidentally smacked me in the head while I was spotting him, and left a little scratch like a half inch from my eye, courtesy my glasses. Shower at the rec center, then off to my less physical classes.

Creating good work was neat, we talked about readings I’d actually done for once, and the way that corporate tax incentives represent the robbery of local governments by corporate interests, and possible reforms to that system.

I grab a minute with the only MSTEP prof to get some advice on courses to take, then register for several classes for the fall. Science & Technology, Media & Policy, Environmental/Resource Policy, Intro to Dance, and I have to get a permission thingie out of some geography prof to get into an environmental policy course, that has no clear connection to geography in the syllabus, and seems to be much more about tracking legislation.

I finished up my “mangle html so as to add an additional, proprietary layer of obnoxious complexity so that you can have your retarded new web system” script. I even had it fix some of the errors in the original html. And the goddamn website to upload into the stinking pile of crap system with which I’m supposed to work is so goddamn slow I can’t do anything. I want to go beat the people who decided to push this pustulent pile of a crap, with their own server. Then install an apache webserver with ssh so I can scp my files onto it, and walk the fuck away.

I had lunch with , but I was too cranked to enjoy it (and I subjected poor James to a bad restaurant, because I was still in grr I hate coding mindframe combined with anxiety over the meeting I was skipping). I skip my bi-weekly project RAs status meeting for the 3rd or 4th time running. I go to economic development, spend most of the class browsing a WoW website and downloading readings. Afterwards, I talk with Marit, our administrative assistant specializing in event planning briefly, before heading across the mississippi to talk to the people who gave me the access to drop T&LU officially, because they didn’t. I get there 10 minutes too late. Grr.

I go to get a haircut, ask for “a high & tight” and the stylist has no idea what that is. so, I say “a 2 on top, and extremely short on the sides & back”. He asks me if I’m joining the military. I give an amused no. I think I offended his artistic senisibilities, but he did a good job nonetheless. Combined with my recent remebrance of razor ownership, the change in my appearance over the past couple weeks is quite dramatic. Totally unshaven, shaggy headed to clean shaven w/high & tight. Shower at the rec center (it’d be nice if I used it to work out) noted that I passed the 160lb mark. I’m getting hefty. Hrm. I really doubt the wait gain is proportionately composed of muscle, gymnastics and walking are my only forms of exercise at present, well, that and carrying around an enormous weight in the form of my backpack around with me everywhere I go.

Back to the Humphrey for the Gay Marriage Amendment Forum. Serious kudos to Jordan, our new, straight, white, male diversity chair for pushing this thing. I was the first person to ask a question of the panel. Before and after I had a good opportunity to talk with (State) Senator Dibble. We discussed running technique, and he invited me to join him for some lap swimming at some point, as well as to pick his brain on energy policy. He rocks, I need to make the time to actually get to know him. I also talked with the policy director of OutFront Minnesota. I want to work for them, for the summer, but I really want to work in energy and environmental concerns professionally. Bethany gave Kirsten and myself a ride back to Uptown, on which trip I talked Bethany into enthusiasm for the role of political leader for QGPA. It wasn’t hard, it was more a recognition of the match between her interests and the needs of the organization.

Bean burritos with guacamole (made with fresh ingredients). Now an “early” bed time, so I can get up tomorrow morning before class to do the homework prior to seeing the butt doc.

See, my life is so boring, now where the fuck is the pause button?

Sin City

Saw Sin City a week ago with , , , and .

It’s a very stylish movie, with some good acting, lots of action, pretty scenery, an interesting, if not intriguing plot, and a dark, totally corrupt setting. I have to admit, my brain was hung up on the rampant sexist themes throughout the movie. Well, that and the near maximally misanthropic view of humanity. The men are all violent. Even the “good” guys. All the people in positions of authority are corrupt. The only non-hooker female in the whole movie is a lesbian, and dies quickly. Even the most competent women are incapable of stopping, or even slowing down, the major good or bad guys who are, of course, male, without a male lead on their side. Two of the three protagonists bite it. (Along with a slew of bad guys). All the chicks are hot (according to my internalized social judgement engine).

Veris-uh-what-itude? If this thing weren’t so over the top absurd, it might be scary. (I think that was the intent) They play it serious, and it comes out as entertaining, and not entirely in a laugh at sort of way.

This sort of thing is probably where my rural relatives get their impressions of the metropolitan areas that scare them so much.

All in all, entertaining to watch … unless you’re sensitive to social realism in fantastic settings. =) And even then, I enjoyed it, even if I wouldn’t really recommend it.

Sega Fantasy VI

Do you make awful games that no one wants?
What will you do, darling?
I wait for your words….

Most bizarre final fantasy parody ever. It’s a blend of ff6 graphics and music, game console icons, redone plot bits, and zingers that I mostly don’t get about game systems I’ve never played on. But somehow it still amuses me. Warning: it’s long. [edit: and when I say long, I mean epic, like at least as long as the full ff6 credits]