I got to level five before I went crazy — how’d you do at Shift?
Speaking of games to drive you crazy, SnowGurlie sends along Bloxorz, which I think I’ve linked to before, but I’m too lazy busy to look it up.
Month: February 2008
Time Killers For The Evening
I’m Tired Of Tax Time, But Thankfully Mine Are Now Done
If you’re wondering why I’ve sort of disappeared off the face of the Earth the last week or so (posting links sporadically at best), I’ve been dealing with my favorite time of the year: Tax Time. And since I’m apparently the only one that knows anything about this sort of thing in my extended family (or at least I pretend to), I do the taxes for my in-laws as well. While I do it all in TurboTax, it’s still a time-consuming, mind-numbing process.
It’s always easy to do my brother-in-law’s taxes as he has one job, doesn’t make a ton of money, and is eligible for the free filing programs with the IRS so I don’t have to pay filing fees for him. My mom and dad-in-law’s taxes got a lot more complicated this year with their youngest daughter going off to college this year. They had loan paper work, she had scholarship paperwork, I didn’t get her 1098-T form until after filing, and needed to amend (as there was a $300 difference in the refund as the numbers on her statement didn’t match up with her 1098-T). All told, it took a bunch of time to make sure I was getting the numbers right so that we maximized their refund (it certainly helps that she’s going to a really expensive school and he finally got his W4 adjusted last year so he wasn’t claiming four kids living at home). But we had to try to get theirs done as soon as we could so that they could get their FAFSA sent off.
Then this weekend I finally got around to starting mine. This year I was making more money doing side-jobs for people, and got three more 1099-MISCs than last year, and also had a bunch of work that had to be claimed but didn’t get a 1099 form. Being the good boy I was, I claimed every last frickin’ dime of it (even making sure that TurboTax handled my Oregon “kicker” properly), but you better dang well believe I also itemized and deducted as much as humanely possible so that the Feds couldn’t bend me over the table. All told, after hours of work, I’m getting a small refund from the Feds and owe the State a bit of money — so basically I broke even. I wish I could write off my time I spent doing this crap, not just the fees I paid for the software.
I’m just happy as heck to have it overwith at least another 11 months or so. And then we get to do it all again. Yipee…
Now I’m going to go catch up on some Dead Like Me episodes that I’ve gotten from Netflix but just haven’t had a chance to watch.
Remember that broken spy satellite?
Remember that broken spy satellite that’s heading towards earth that the government doesn’t know what to do with? Apparently they’ve just decided to blow the thing out of the sky because “its fuel poses a danger to people on the ground.” Or it could be because it holds the secrets to the alien landings in Nevada and the location of where Elvis is currenty living, but whatever.
Valentines For Geeks
If you’re looking for that perfect card for your special geek, here you go.
Oddball Patents For The Day
These are some oddball patents (thanks Geekologie for both of these):
- Patent 5163447 describes a “force-sensitive, sound-playing condom.” . The art is hilarious (and a bit NSFW).
- Philips files a patent for a game systems with a throwable monitor. Naturally, the site referenced is down, so I can’t get the patent number for a Google search.
For some cheap entertainment, just go to Google’s patent search and reload the front page a few times, watching the patents that show up on the page. There are some fun ones like this popcorn machine.
HD-DVD’s Days Are Numbered
With Netflix going to move exclusively to Blu-ray, Best Buy pushing the format to the front and Warner going exclusively Blu-ray, I can’t see HD-DVD surviving too much longer. While I’m all about this format war being over, I’m sad to see that a Sony-backed product win out. HD-DVDs were cheaper to manufacture (as I think they could be made using basically the same equipment as DVDs while Blu-ray needed new equipment), easier to rip for fair-use purposes (BD+ still hasn’t been cracked yet), and Sony’s been subsidizing Blu-ray folks (sources). What happens when that money goes away? Rental and purchase fees will go up. I’m sure equipment costs will probably drop, but the media cost won’t.
Needless to say, the HD-DVD folks call this an unfortunate decision.
Geekdom Link Dump
Another bunch of geek links for everybody:
- Remove Optional and Probably Unnecessary Windows Vista Components.
- How to find a lost Blackberry with Berry Locator.
- And the worst name for a handy utility: FART for Find And Replace Text (a Grep-like command line tool for Windows).
- Customizing default styles in MovableType 4 (I’ll upgrade this site one of these days).
- Low hassle ways to secure your computer system.
- Extending the life of your iPod battery.
- Speed up disk access by disabling Last Access Update in Windows XP.
- That’s one geeky notepad.
- Get tabs for your PuTTY.
- Strip down Vista with vLite.
- 11 Power Tips for Gmail.
- Certificates for those special geeks in your life (I’m actually eligible for this one).
- Build a PC for $200.
- What can you build with 600 lines of code?
- Microsoft says Vista more secure than XP, OSX and Linus (and they have pretty graphs to prove it).
- Disable the PC speaker beep in Windows.
- That’s one tiny Bluetooth adapter.
- An amazing write-up on how you can add everything to your eeePC including two four port USB hubs, internal GPS, Bluetooth, 56k modem, FM audio transmitter, 4gb USB flash drive and a 801.11a/b/g/n card.
- How to remotely shut down your computer.
- Disable Vista’s Aero interface before running an application.
- Top 10 Underhyped Web Apps.
Speaking of geek, I’m looking for one of those 1U KVM consoles. We’re setting up a fancy rack of servers here at the office (as I’ve mentioned), and I’ve gotten a hold of most of what I need, but I’d love to rack-mount one last bit of stuff: My monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
I currently have a standalone 1U KVM, but it’s a bit clunky (it needs tape to hold down the power button). I’d prefer one of those all-in-one 1u (or even 2U) KVM/LCD/Keyboard/Trackpad things that slide into a rack. It’s needs to be 8 port, have at least 5 cables, and the LCD needs to support at least 1024×768. Otherwise, As long as it works and doesn’t cost me brand-new pricing, I’m good with it. Comment below or use the contact form to the right of the page (or e-mail utterlyboring [at] gmail [dot] com).
Central Oregon Blogger Meetup
Since it’s been a hell of a long time since anybody’s had a format blogger meetup around here, Shannon decided to organize one. Here are the details:
Central Oregon Blogger Meet-up
Feb 21, 5:30ish at the Blacksmith (happy hour, for those who care!), Downtown Bend (Map)
RSVP to Shannon at shanlee at gmail.com
Spouses and significant others are invited.
Jen’s put something up on COWPU as well as on her own site, and I’m sure some other locals will be posting info on their sites soon.
I’m hoping I can make it (if I can, it won’t be until 6:00 at the earliest).
If Banner Ads Were Truthful…
…they’d look something like this (the web would be a better place if they did).
I Never Had Any Sons…
…so I never got to help anybody build a Pinewood Derby car like I built in Cub Scouts. But my older daughter is in a church group that is going to be having Pinewood Derby-esque car races, so now I can use the power of the ‘net to build stupidly fast cars. Holy crap is there a ton of information out there — there are some really serious dudes when it comes to this kind of stuff. Painting it like a school bus like I did in Cub Scouts (it nearly won) is looking more and more like a good idea.