Month: August 2005

In two weeks, Zing will have a total of four employees (woo hoo!). Two of them, including me, are in Colorado… and through long experience I know all of the tax rules and documents I need to file for the state. However, one employee is in California and another is in Oregon. Thus, I’m faced now with figuring out all of the arcane tax laws of those states so we can properly pay everyone and submit our taxes to The Man.

I’m doing my homework on the California stuff, and when I downloaded the 107-page tax manual (whee) I was struck by the introductory message. For some reason, the phrase “Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger thanks you for choosing to do business in the great State of California” made me bust a gut.

This world map shows the distribution of spam sources across the internet. Although it’s not terribly scientific, I must say I’m shocked– shocked!— that the United States is the “hot spot” of spam in the world. What about all those Nigerians?

The kids have been asking to see the new movie Two Brothers, which is a heartwarming tale about two tiger cubs who get lost in the woods or something. I headed over to Blockbuster today and used up the last of our free movie rentals, and we all sat down to watch it this evening.

According to the box, the movie is “enthralling”. After about twenty minutes I couldn’t stand it any more, so I left to do some work. Laralee’s comment: “Well, I don’t know about ‘enthralling’. More like ‘appalling’.”

So two thumbs down from the adults in the household, although all three of the kids liked it.

Turn up the stereo!

“What can I do with a constitution if I have no water, gasoline, and electricity?”

— Hanan Sahib, Iraqi woman

As part of a seminary recruiting campaign, some Catholics are using a poster modeled on The Matrix to make the priesthood look somehow “cool” or “hip”. Interesting idea; I wonder how it’s viewed at higher levels in the church.

No, this isn’t a joke, although the possibilities are endless.

Seen in a discussion on Kiro5hin about failed anti-terrorism measures:

Each time I hear about a “terrorist incident” on the news these days my first reaction isn’t “Stupid scumbags – let’s kill them all!”.

No. My first reaction is “What is my stupid government going to do to ME in response to this action?”

For whatever reason, I keep getting spam messages about television show DVD sets. Here’s part of one:

Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Ally McBeal
The Golden Girls
Seinfeld
The Nanny
Thundercats
Sex and the City

All of these and many more available on COMPLETE DVD SETS!!!

Wow, I shudder to think how many people are jumping all over things like Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The Golden Girls. I mean, the opportunity to own the complete series must be pretty tantalizing…

a la Monty Python: “Help, help, I’m being repressed!”

Yesterday I was talking to Zack about how everyone should think about how they can help people around them. I asked him if there was anything he could do to help others. His response was yes, absolutely. When I asked him what it was, he said:

“Well, I could help a mouse… that’s drowning.”