…that’s what the eBay auction read. Shipping was $3000. Otherwise, a great deal, don’t you think? Maybe this is why eBay is changing their fee plan. They worried about the fact the number of people using eBay has stagnated. Hmmmmm … could it be that finding great deals on eBay are becoming as rare as finding cheap lawyers in the phone book? Over the past couple of years, I’ve found better deals locally (with sales taxes included) than I have at this once money-saving auction site. Could eBay’s rate increase signal their decline?
Monthly Archive for January, 2008
Curious about what happens when you publish your inner thoughts to the Internet world? Wonder how people learn about your latest work? And how do spammers fit into the scheme of things? Wired Magazine has this interesting animated article on their site about the life cycle of a blog post. Enjoy!
I guess you could vote for the one who promises the least. That’s the one who will be the least disappointing. But that ain’t goin’ happen. If we got a dollar for every promise offer, we’d all be rich. In any case, are you a tad confused by which politicians reflects your interests? Go to electoralcompass.com, answer a few questions and get an idea of where you stand politically as well as which politician is closest to your beliefs. Personally, I recommend not voting for politicians … it only encourages them!
If you read my previous post, “How To Have the Government Pay You Money”, before Sunday evening, I should tell you that I’ve changed it. In the morning, I wrote it out of frustration. By Sunday night, I rewrote it and added some humor. Sorry about that. I should have released it after a day of reflection. Still, if you read it earlier, did I make it better?
… sort of. What happens when the government owes you your overpaid tax money and they don’t get it to you in a timely manner? No, your congressional representative does not send you flowers and a thank you note. Better yet, you’re entitled to interest on your money. According to the internal revenue service’s “Notice 746″, they are supposed to pay you interest at the same rate as they charge when you don’t surrender your money to them in a timely manner. The rate, compounded daily, varies from year-to-year. Over the past decade, it’s been between 4 and 8%. But what the rules say and what the irs does aren’t necessarily the same thing. Surprised?
Back in 2001, the irs made a slight mistake and took $12,000 more from me than they should have. Thank goodness, they are so conscientious about righting wrongs. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been fighting to get it back ever since. Oh what! Yes, I have! You would think that the interest on this financial faux pas would be a good chunk of change (almost $6,000 by my calculations). Instead, last month I finally received a check as an interest payment for … wait for it … almost $600. Yesterday, I received another letter from the IRS. But instead of another check for interest or the rest of the money they still owe me or a dinner invitation, they graciously had sent a 1099 form. In other words, they want me to declare the $600 as income so they can tax that as well. It’s as if they said, “Sorry about holding onto your money for so long and making it difficult to get back. But you know that pittance we sent to you last month? We want some of it back! Got to pay off that trillion dollar deficit somehow.”
You know, if I had put that $12,000 in a bank at 3% interest back in 2001, I would’ve earned over $2700 by now. In that case, I could understand the government wanting to take its cut of my money. Yet, how can they take money that they owed me to begin with? It’s not like I willingly gave the irs $12,000 to hold for me as an investment. (And I’ve made some bad investment decisions in the past.) So I don’t understand how the scenario is even possible. The worst part about all of this? I don’t really seem to have any recourse in this matter … unless somebody out there knows otherwise. Maybe I’ll get luck and they’ll put me on the “Jelly of the Month” club — this month’s flavor: KY.
Yes, I know ‘irs’ is supposed to be capitalized. I tend to capitalize what I respect…
Thinking about a visit to our neighbors to the north? I’m assuming that you live in the ol’ US of A and we’re talking about Canada. Otherwise, we’re talking about my nosy neighbors and not really worth a trip up the street.
I just wanted to warn you. Canada has made great use of its complete and unrestricted access to the American criminal database. To preserve Canadian national purity, anyone listed in that comprehensive database is not allowed to cross into the Great White North. Did you scalp tickets to a hockey games? Had a DUI thirty years ago? Regardless of how minor the offense or how long ago a youthful transgression took place, you ain’t makin’ a trip over that ther’ border.
It doesn’t help that America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Either we are a bunch of sleazy, lawbreaking animals or we live in a nation full of burdensome, nitpicking laws. Not that Canada is without their share of idiotic laws. But for some reason, American border policy isn’t as restrictive on our Canadian visitors. But being an American can mean a sneeze in the wrong city and you’ll wind up as a legal statistic in the criminal database of a ‘free’ country.
I guess it could be worse. Imagine being a friendly Canadian visiting the wonders of the US. One jaywalking conviction and you’re stuck with here with the rest of us lawless Americans. How scary would that be, eh?
Non Sequitur is another of my favorite comic strips. The author, Wiley Miller, has won several literary awards for insightfully hitting the proverbial nail on the head. Such as he did today:
If the comic isn’t readable, please click on it for a more legible picture.
Thanks to another one of Lynne’s timely posts, I’m able to do something about scrapers — those lazy, scum-of-the-blogsphere bloggers who have nothing better to do but steal your content for their sites. Today, I installed a Wordpress plug-in called RSS footer. This plug-in from “SEO Blog” allows you to add automatically a line to each of your posts in your feed, along with link back to your blog. Theoretically, when a lowlife scraper takes your content, it will give credit to you as the rightful author.
This is step one. Next, I need to add a copyright tag line on my posts. Something else to do….
Have you been hearing the news that doctors can become better surgeons by playing games on Nintendo’s Wii before an operation? You have to dig a little deeper into the story to learn that the study was done using virtual operations. Yes, thanks to “Marble Mania”, all the virtual patients lived and are awaiting their virtual bills.
More amazing is that this study has made a tremendous impression in the medical field. It’s reported that hospitals are seriously considering the purchase of $250 Wii systems instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars for traditional training equipment. Nintendo is even in talks to develop games specially for surgeons. I give this hoopla a few months before someone in accounting decides to go even cheaper. Yes, just a few months before they start buying $15 “Operation” games for medical training…
A couple of posts ago, I drew a quick cartoon and put it on this blog. Today, I worked with a online cartoon creator at ToonDoo.com to create this simple explanation of the government’s stimulus package. It would have been quicker for me to draw, but ToonDoo might entertain your inner child. It has a several characters to choose from but is limited in the types of eyes, mouths and hair for your character. ToonDoo gives regular html and flash object code to embed your cartoon. I’ve included both version of the cartoon to see how well they show up. While this post loaded well under Internet Explorer, I couldn’t get the flash viewer to behave in my Firefox browser. So I added the “Kimili Flash Embed for Wordpress” plugin. Now the flash player seems to be working well in Firefox. Just put your mouse cursor over the cartoon to control which panel is displayed. Let me know if you have any problems view them.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.
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