Dirty Red Commie

I've had migraines on the brain lately.  No, I haven't had a migraine recently, but the topic has come up several times in the past couple of weeks, and I just ran across some sites that I found particularly interesting as a migraine sufferer.  

I came across a series of paintings by migraine patients that are attempts to show what the experience is like.  In particular, the geometric patterns are excellent representations of the visual aura I experience before a migraine.  Looking through the slideshow, the familiarity I felt was striking -- so much so that was not a particularly pleasant experience.  

The New York Times has a migraine blog of which I was not previously aware. The most recent post is by Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilco.  I don't know their music very well, but it's interesting to know that much of their music was recorded while Tweedy was having migraines.  He would even perform at concerts with migraines.  Playing an instrument under bright lights and loud speakers with a migraine sounds absolutely unbearable.

I recently found out that my father and my grandmother both occasionally experience Acephalgic or "silent" migraines ,
which feature the weird visual disturbances, but not the pain.  Lucky
them.  That seems to support the idea that migraines are often genetic.

Sorry for the dry post, guys, but I think those of you who are fellow migraineurs may find these links interesting, and maybe some of the rest might as well.

As you should all know, I run a small site for the anonymous telling of secrets.  While I'm careful not to record any user-specific information, I do collect a little aggregate data for my own curiosity.  Today I took a look at the last month's search engine referrer logs.  In the past, it's been primarily people looking for porn or descriptions of perverse events -- but lately there's been a trend toward people searching for help with their troubled lives and relationships.  Here are some examples:

• how do i know if my ex girlfriend still likes me
• I yelled at my girlfriend how do I make her forgive me
• Is my girlfriend getting bored
• mom and girlfriend problems
• I've got to know.  did my daughter have an abortion
• how to say sorry for a betrayed friend

While they probably didn't find solutions to their problems, hopefully they found some solace in the fact that they're not alone.

Last night, I guess I forgot to lock my car.  Apparently you noticed this while doing your rounds, and took the opportunity to take some of my belongings.

 To my knowledge, you took the following:

• A sealed cardboard box.
• A CD containing a recording of my weekly radio show.

But for some reason, you left these things behind:

• A case containing more than 100 cds.
• A 350-Watt power inverter.
• A digital camera.
• A really cool hat.
• An inflatable bed.
• A Forever Flashlight

Instead of taking these things, you took the mystery box.  I know the mystery box is tempting, but if you've ever watched any game shows at all, you should know the prime mystery box rule: Don't take the mystery box.  You're now the proud owner of one completely non-functional Western Digital Caviar Hard Drive (250GB).  It didn't work, so I was going to return it.  They've already sent me the replacement, so you just saved me the cost of shipping.

Congratulations, asshole.  You probably took the two least valuable things in my car next to the bag of trash.  

Now, I see you gave a little thought to taking my stereo deck.  (Thanks for leaving that bit of plastic trim behind, by the way.)  But it's best you left it.  They're only going for about $20 on ebay without the activation code.  Though, I guess it's worth more than anything else you took.

Maybe you're just new at this.  Perhaps this was your first time, and you haven't yet developed that sharp intuitive sense of what is valuable and what is garbage.  But then again, if you don't think a digital camera is worth the effort of closing your fist, maybe you're just not meant for this line of work.  I'd wish you better luck next time, but really I just hope you get your balls caught on some barbed wire. 

 Sincerely,

    Ben
 

Last week, the library my wife works at conducted a fire drill.  I've always enjoyed fire drills, so I was a little jealous.  In elementary school, I'd clap my hands with glee to the loud noises and flashing lights.  Not much has changed.

 But when I found out that someone actually got to play the part of the fire itself, my imagination ran with it.  At the libraray, someone stands holding a sign bedecked with illustrated flames that reads, "FIRE."  In my mind, it became a pageant with The Fire playing the lead role.  He danced and sang, the actor's glorious and brightly colored costume outshining the firemen's own yellow and red. 

I mean, it couldn't be anything less than a Broadway musical, could it?   

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Paying taxes is easy.  Despite the complexity of the American tax system, I need simply to go about my daily existence, and the Internal Revenue Service thoughtfully takes the money from my monthly paycheck.  I don't have to do a thing.

Unfortunately, the IRS isn't quite sure how much they'll need, so they aim high to be on the safe side.  Once a year, they give us all the opportunity to settle the score in hopes of earning a tax refund.  Since our various governing bodies are much more interested in receiving money than in returning it, the tax return process is as complex and exhausting as the tax payment process is effortless.  Tax returns are a mysterious black art, the arcane marks and forms of which are only understood by the tremendous tax-preparation industry.

I like to file early.  As soon as all my forms come in, I'm eager to get this dirty, dirty business out of the way.  I consider the check I eventually receive to be an added bonus.  Being the high-tech, hip, progressive guy that I am, I like to e-file.  Electronic filing seems like the logical way to get this messy business over and done with as quickly as possible -- after all, computers are here to make our lives easier, right? 

Last year, I e-filed with H&R Block via their website.  It was relatively painless until the very last step.  After filling in all the forms with carefully triple-checked numbers, I pressed the final button that promised to send this voodoo to the IRS.  A very polite screen asked me to wait.  I never found out what I was supposed to be waiting for, however.  After several hours, I gave up and closed the screen.  I tried this several more times, I was consistently but politely asked to wait until the end of time.  After being ignored by their customer service for several days and a great deal of trial and error, I discovered that the H&R Block on-line tax system was only 99% compatible with my Mozilla-based browser.  The two incompatibilities were:
1) If I clicked on any "help" link, an unreadable, unresizable window the size of a sugar cube would joyfully spring forth. 
2) I couldn't exactly file my taxes. 
So as long as I already fully understood the intricacies of the American tax system and was only there for my own personal entertainment, these incompatibilities were of no real concern.
Eventually, I did get last year's tax return submitted.  All I had to do was find a machine running Windows and use Internet Explorer to click that final button.  It didn't even show me that cursed waiting screen.

H&R Block has clearly taken a long, hard look at the successes and failures of last year's e-filing system and made sure that all users, regardless of their operating system or browser choice, are equally and fairly prevented from filing their taxes.  Those are some clever folks, that's for sure.  They know to wait until the very last step before crushing your spirit.  This year, they got even craftier.  After spending something like two hours filling out forms, the system told me that I had finally finished, and that it was checking for errors.  Relief washed over me as it congratulated me for making no errors whatsoever.  I clicked "next". 

Thinking that I had made it through the gauntlet unscathed, I let my guard down.  This is when they struck.  There was no endless purgatory of  "Please Wait".  This year they pointed the accusatory finger of blame squarely in my face.  Apparently one of my W-2 forms was missing "one or more" required pieces of information.  They didn't tell me which form, or what information was missing.  They simply told me to fix it.  I painstakingly checked every field of both forms five times.  I had made no errors.  Yet the system refused to file my taxes until I fixed this mysterious problem. 

This year, H&R Block has added live support to their offering.  Instead of carefully ignoring your email, they allow you to chat directly with support personnel via a nifty little web interface.  This seemed like a good time to ask for help.  Perhaps I was just exhausted and couldn't see my obvious mistake.  I clicked on the prominent and helpful looking "live help" link.  "Welcome," it said.  I would be put in contact with a customer support representative just as soon as one was available.  Just as soon as they were finished with the 976 people in line before me.  Please Wait.

I calmly shut down my computer, crawled under my desk, hugged my knees, and rocked back and forth until my wife coaxed me out with some ice cream. 

I still haven't managed to file my taxes.  I gave up on H&R Block and entered all that information all over again using TurboTax.  I felt optimistic this time.  My federal refund was even $30 more this time.  But TurboTax would not submit my tax return either.  But at least it didn't blame me.  It claimed that the IRS hadn't updated some system or other yet, and wasn't prepared to deal with education credits, which certainly sounds plausible.  And instead of saying "Please Wait" it suggested that I try again tomorrow. 

I am defeated.  E-File has reduced me to a shadow of my former self.  This year, I will submit my tax return using the arcane paper forms and smoke signals.  It may take longer to get my refund, but at least I won't be paying these companies to waste my time and break my spirit.

I recently decided that I need a watch.  Specifically, I need a watch that I'm likely to wear.  I do own a Matrix Binary Watch, and it's cool, but it's bulky, hard to read, and has a beep that can't be turned off. 

After getting distracted for a while and learning about what it means when a watch has a certain number of jewels, I decided that I want a watch with a tactile alarm.  At one point, I googled "watch vibrating completely silent" and was shocked to find that my own fiction blog appeared as the fourth result.

Okay, so maybe they don't. This blog should replace the one-day-old Talk blog that I set up to experiment with things.

Oh, and DRC is back from the grave. Sorta.