Stuff
I’m volunteering to help the Panther Valley Property Owners Association with their web site and communications in general. Should be fun.
You should try TVTonic, it’s pretty good. TVTonic is the product I worked on at my last computer job. Think of it as the next step after Tivo… First there was the TV, then VCR, then Tivo, then TVTonic. It downloads large (10-100 megabyte) video files into it’s cache on spec, so when you turn it on (it runs in Internet Explorer), it always has something ready for you. When you merge TV and computers, you can do a lot more than just watch, but this is a good super-short description. You need high speed internet, Windows and 5-10 gig free to use it. They’ve got a 2 month free trial and they won’t spam you or anything dumb.
Something is messed up that when I have to pay $270 to have someone else do my taxes (right before my eyes) and I think I’m getting a bargain. In the short-term sense, yes it -is- a bargain. My H & R Block lady found me several deductions and loopholes in a 1 1/2 hr sitting that I couldn’t have found in 10 hours of research (and then another 5 hours of filling out forms). But why are taxes so hard to do? The states and feds obviously do our taxes for us… that’s how they can send us a refund check for $41.16 instead of the expected $32.14. So if they do our taxes for us, why do I have to pay someone almost $300 to do them, and someone else at the IRS, NJ Dept of Revenue, and NY Dept of Revenue… My taxes get done twice! That’s almost $600 in work being done, for no tangible benefit!
And this is only slightly related but I have to say that when George Dubbya sent every American taxpayer a check for $300 two years ago, I got so friggin angry at him! He was obviously trying to buy us with our own money. Why doesn’t he just double our taxes and then give us a 50% discount? I would like to know exactly how much it cost the government to mail out those 150 million checks. Those costs should have come out of Dubbya’s own pocket.