THOMnottom – Page 21 – Back and bloggier than ever

The tax man cometh

After doing our taxes last year, I was so excited by the big return (no doubt going to pay a bill) that it never occurred to me that I was ignoring all of the investments The Woman sold. So when I found some paperwork months later that pointed this out… well… let’s just say that a panic attack was narrowly avoided. But a funny thing happened when that information was entered into the tax software – it said the freakin’ man still owed me more money.

How could this be? After pouring over the original and modified returns it eventually became clear that you should be wary of using an online service for doing your taxes. The website never properly transferred all of our wonderful home ownership type deductions over – and they more than adequately canceled out the rediscovered income. But as I struggled to find all of the paperwork and eventually formatted and reinstalled computers, actually filing the modifications kept getting put off.

Fast forward to this month. Shortly before we leave for vacation a nice letter from the IRS made it’s way to us: In case you didn’t notice, you forgot about a crapload of money so, PAY US FOUR GRAND OR WE TAKE YOUR FIRST BORN! Just kidding about that – it was under $4,000.

While I was pretty sure they weren’t taking everything into account, it was still disconcerting. And it became even more disconcerting when I noticed things on their paperwork that I had no knowledge of. Crap! Tax prison, here I come!

After weeks of sorting out missing papers, mixed up numbers, and software installation (it’s really awesome that TaxCut wouldn’t open my federal return because it also contained a state return which it wouldn’t let me install since it thought it already was…) I finally figured it all out. And tomorrow, not only do I get to tell the freakin’ man that I don’t owe them anything, but I also get to tell them that they owe me money!

I’m not sure how I managed to miss reporting several thousand dollars of income and still come out several hundred dollars ahead of the game. Perhaps I should start offering to do other people’s taxes?

Bed: Free to a good home

So, we have to clear some room for this baby thing. There’s a full size bed in what’s to become the nursery and have been advised that it’s too big for our incoming roommate. I didn’t realize just how much we’d have to adjust – next thing you know people will be telling me I can’t stay out drinking all night or blasting my music whenever I want… what a drag!

If any of you out there can use a full size, we’d be pretty happy to have you come and take this off our hands. It’s a thick mattress with a box spring and a basic frame. Don’t worry if you can’t take it right away, but definitely let me know if you can use it (otherwise we’ll put it on Craigslist or sneak it into a neighbor’s house or something).

I’ll be sure to keep you guys apprised of any other cool stuff that we’ll be ditching to make our home baby-ready. You know, like my authentic 15th century sword display or hazardous material of the world collection.

How to win me over…

If you’re a waitress, and you see me looking over a menu indecisively, and you’re about to offer me a special that includes the words “three meat” and “wrapped in bacon”, just stop. Turn around. Go back to the kitchen and get me one. Don’t waste our time pretending that I might order the scallop and shrimp combo or something as trivial as a hamburger. You put together 3 different animals and then still felt the need to wrap it in bacon – that is what I call dedication to my satisfaction.

This message has been brought to you by the brilliant staff of Nicky Fischer’s who served me a three meat meatloaf… you guessed it… wrapped in bacon. Genius.

The Woman and I were down that way Saturday night to see the Pat Metheny Trio at the Keswick Theatre. I’m not going to tell you about the show, because I already posted about it on my other blog. Remember that one? I’ve actually been posting to it (despite my lengthy, vacation-driven absence on both sites) – and that includes some cool concert info that I recently discovered. Ha ha! Now you have to check it out or you’ll never know what it is!

Laughter: My only medicine

I just spent like an hour laughing my ass off. I’m talking deep guffaws. The kind that rock your belly and make you miss half of the dialogue going on. And the sad part? I was watching Two and a Half Men followed by The New Adventures of Old Christine. Seriously, just follow that up with According to Jim and my night would be complete.

I can laugh at just about anything. Even when I know it’s crap. The Woman has found me rolling on the ground while watching a movie and I’ll admit outright that it’s terrible. And like I said, these aren’t little chuckles, they’re full on cackles.

It’s not like doctor visits are common for me, so I’m relying on the old adage that laughter is the best medicine. That’s also why having a baby should be good for me. From what I’ve learned on America’s Funniest Home Videos, those little guys are sources of non-stop amusement.

Slight rant…

No matter where I go on vacation… no matter whether I have a blast or just an OK time… no matter how much I miss my home… Once I get back in my car it takes about 2-3 minutes max to begin hating New Jersey again. This state sucks the life out of me that much.

Oh, and what’s with all of my chattering friends? I leave for a week and come back to 130+ posts to read – and that doesn’t even include the rest of my blogroll…

No fear of flying

What is it with the state of New Jersey? Does it try to make travel so difficult for fear of people never returning once they see what life elsewhere is like? For the second trip in a row, we were stuck trying to make our way to an off airport at 5 in the morning in the middle of a monsoon. At least this time I managed not to completely soak my foot. But we did, once again, have to make multiple U-turns to reach the lot thanks to the wonderful signage of this great state.

Thankfully we reached Florida just in time to hit a monsoon down here. I can’t really complain, because we’ve almost always had very good luck with weather on vacations. And quite frankly, we’ve been too exhausted to do anything on day one but a bit of shopping and crapload of sushi-eating.

I seem to have at least a small fear of travel. It’s not the method of travel. Heck, I watched the exciting video of that crosswind landing over in Germany just yesterday, and yet I still have absolutely no qualms with handing over my sense of safety to the pilots. Instead, I seem to have a fear of leaving my home for any real length of time. I am way too much of a homebody. But for this week I have full confidence that Shadow will be able to take care of everything in our absence…

Commercials that crush my soul

Some news show was doing a segment on commercials you “love to hate” tonight. For starters, is there a more terribly overused phrase than that one? Secondly, isn’t there some real news that should be shown? Whatever. Anyway, they couldn’t help but show a clip of the most offensive commercial on TV. If you haven’t been subjected to it, I’m going to force it on you now:

I can only imagine that the guy in the dragon suit excuses himself to the bathroom and weeps uncontrollably whenever it comes on. Which is almost every freakin’ commercial break…

There aren’t that many other ads that so completely offend me on just about every level. There’s the many horrid campaigns of Burger King. From the creepy homo eroticism of the king to the frightening overreactions of the dregs that apparently eat there on a regular basis, each one of them makes me want to rush out and burn down one of their crappy restaurants. Now they are actually comparing Wendy’s to Russia because they sell baked potatoes… WTF?

Hmm… this topic sucks. Maybe tomorrow I should talk about commercials I actually like next time…

In a nutshell

Of course you all read xkcd already, but I still felt the need to point out how awesomely the comic the other day described me:

The Woman either laughed or rolled her eyes at that one – probably a combination. But it’s not just me he’s describing – it’s our entire relationship:

Enter year six

As has become my annual tradition, I begin with my own quote:

Crap. I was sure I would get my “blogiversary” right this year. It’s at the end of February – the 26th, to be exact. Not that difficult to remember. Of course, I kept forgetting what date I am currently living in, which is why I just noticed that today is the 27th. Yeehaw.

Actually, this year I remembered late last night. But I had already posted and was getting tired. So tradition won out over accuracy. And today I celebrate my blogiversary 918th post. I’m surprised to see that during a year in which I posted very haltingly at times, I still managed to get in about 140 entries. This year will be the ultimate challenge. As I try to get my other sites going, will it negatively impact my writing over here? And when the little rugrat comes along, will that stop everything altogether? And would anyone notice?

Such exciting conundrums, I’m sure they’ll keep you on the edge of your seats…

Life of late

Hmm, so, what’s been going on with me lately? I watched a lot of movies… We bought some appliances… I tried to rewire the lights and outlets in our bedroom… I’ve been busy at work getting our new facility ready… Oh, and we found out that the little bump in The Woman’s belly is a little girl. She’s currently about the size of a banana. I’m now picturing a fetus in a banana suit – it’s kind of cute, if not a little creepy. I was ready to share ultrasound to show the proof, but I’m not about to flash my baby girl’s privates all over the Internet.

I also found out that this is the year of the rat. That means I get to call our little bundle of joy a rugrat for real. There will certainly be a bunch of rodent jokes in the coming months.

P.S. We’re starting to think of names. Sloane and Shauna are in the running, but we’re not completely sold on a Ferris Bueller reference…