And before that...

I'm on hold with the IRS right now. Did you know you can call the IRS and ask them questions? You have to have lots and lots of time to wait on hold, speakerphone helps, but yeah for real, you can call them up and they have this whole customer service system. It makes sense really: if taxes are a civic duty, there has to be a way to do them for free, even if you're going to go all nutsy and deduct excess moving expenses beyond what your employer pledged to reimburse you for but for which you did not submit your expense report in the tax year during which you moved, and you don't really know what to enter for line 4 of form 3903. For instance.

We've already discussed that I love doing my taxes, right?

So yeah, even though I have all sorts of craziness this year with having done same-day sales on my AOL options and wanting to deduct moving expenses, I don't have to pay someone $100 to figure it out for me. Isn't that the fucking bomb?

I wish i could do itemized deductions but I think I'm still a pretty long ways from spending over $4400 of deductible expenses. Though, it occurred to me that with my fancy new job as Pop Culturist, practically everything fun is deductible. Movies, CDs, Cable TV, Magazines, Books... the problem is, I have so little money anymore to spend on shit like that that there's no way i'm going to spend $4400 on it. Can't afford cable. Haven't been able to afford to go on a CD shopping spree in months. Bought a couple books with a gift certificate earlier this year...

Oh man, did I tell you about the thunder clap I heard a few weeks ago that set off all the car alarms in my neighborhood? That was hot. OH! AND... a few weeks ago when that space shuttle had to land in the California Desert cause of cloud cover in wherever it was supposed to land? We heard the sonic boom at work, all the way over in Culver City. The car alarms went off over that too. That was hot shit. Which reminds me, there's some idjit planning to do a skydive from the edge of space, and his body will break the sound barrier as he falls. Doesn't that seem like it might you know, kill your sense of hearing, burst your eardrums and wither your cochlea and i don't know, HURT? Whatever. It's a shame his daddy didn't love him enough.

How come my apartment rules so much?