Dirty Red Commie

Two brilliant things a friend posted elsewhere that I'd like to share with the commie community.

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/taste_test_cheeseburger_in_a

 Taste testing of German canned cheeseburger (for camping or masochism)

and

 http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/

The Nietzsche Family Circus 

Most regular readers of DirtyRedCommie should know that my wife and I have moved to Helena, MT. I plan to write more about the move and new job soon, but a rather disturbing event occurred the other night. Friday night, a bit before we were preparing to go to bed, Jess and I noticed flashing lights outside our window. We saw this scene:

Apparently a law clerk was stabbed on his way home a mere 100 feet or so from where I was sitting. You can read more about it in the Helena Independent Record or Billings Gazette .

I didn't hear or see anything.  I feel a little guilty that I was so absorbed in a video game at the time.  My heart goes out to the victim's family.   

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060227fa_fact

 Is an account of internal struggles to draw a line between torture and proper treatment procedures for detainees.  It's a good read - if somewhat of a letdown, we all know how this fight ended - and enlightens us mere mortals outside of the Beltway to executive policy-making trends.

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.