Thank You Uncle Sam...

For reminding me that I have no real net worth.

I find the tax talk humorous, as I have a student assistant of mine who is an accounting major; coworkers with property and IRAs and retirement; my parents who are talking about retirement more and more each passing week (which is bizarre to me, seeing as my dad now takes every Wednesday off, and coming from a man who has taken 4 sick days in his entire adult life, that is quite a feat)...I realized something.

I am worth. Nothing.

I mean, I pay my taxes. I have a decent annual income and its growing with every passing performance review (Thanks State of Maryland). I owed the state of Virginia money this year and I have a car loan so, clearly, a few people are happy to see me being a semi-productive member of society as it means they can take more money from me.

But I need to start investing or buying property or punching out some spawn. I think my tax liability would go way down and really, come tax time, it'd be nice to not resort to filling out the 1040EZ form because I don't really have cause to itemize..well, anything.

My taxes this year, took me :drumroll please: 25 minutes to prepare and file. And that included trying to find my personal property tax bill from last year to see if it would help me get some more money back.

It didn't, just in case anyone is keeping score.

So, if anyone has an island they'd like to sell me, a condo that might be a little less than what you expected and you want to unload it, I've got that $600 stimulus package refund burning a hole in my pocket and I've got to do my part to help jump start the floundering economy. I mean, what else am I going to do with it?

I could go to dinner or by a new pair of sassy shoes, but really, am I the only one who thinks that spending$600 in the face of enormous mortgage and credit card debt is like pissing on a forest fire just so you can say you "did your part?"

I didn't think so.

Bringin it back

So I've been on, what, almost a year-long hiatus. I think it's high time I start posting again. And really, I know you guys out there in blogger land will appreciate it.

If you think of something interesting that you want me to write about, I am there. I am always looking for inspiration, and what better inspiration than my readers?!

That being said, this exercise is the last post that I put up on Blogger, and maybe it's a good place to start. Here goes!

You know the deal. Open your music library, put it on shuffle. Write down what comes up.

Opening Credits:
Redhead Walking - REM

Waking Up:
Forget Myself - Third Eye Blind

First Day At School:
Stop This Train - John Mayer

Falling in Love:
This Year's Love - David Gray

Breaking Up:
1, 2, 3, 4 Something New - Coolio

Prom:
Push It - Garbage

Life’s Okay:
Fly Like a Bird - Mariah Carey

Mental Breakdown:
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room - John Mayer

Driving:
Not Coming Home - Maroon 5

Flashback:
Hynotize - Notorious BIG

Getting Back Together:
Maneater - Hall and Oates!

Wedding:
This is the Last Time - Keane

Birth of a Child:
Rescue - Eve 6

Final Battle:
Rock You Like a Hurricane - The Scorpions

Death Scene:
October - U2

Funeral Song:
Darwin - Third Eye Blind

End Credits:
Black Cat - Janet Jackson

This is all Phil's Phault.

You know the deal. Open your music library, put it on shuffle. Write down what comes up.

Opening Credits:
Blinded - Third Eye Blind

Waking Up:
Brilliant Disguise - Bruce Springsteen

First Day At School:
Vultures - John Mayer ----- HOW APPROPRIATE.

Falling in Love:
Wandering - Ben Folds

Breaking Up:
Where the Streets Have No Name - U2

Prom:
God of Wine - Third Eye Blind (very very appropriate)

Life’s Okay:
I'll Do Anything - Jason Mraz

Mental Breakdown:
Kill Yourself - Timbaland and Sebastian

Driving:
His Name is Lancelot- Spamalot

Flashback:
What Comes Around - Beastie Boys

Getting Back Together:
Mysterious Ways - U2

Wedding:
Right Here, Right Now - Fatboy Slim (this is going to be my pump up song for Nolan's wedding now. its official)

Birth of a Child:
Dreaming With a Broken Heart - John Mayer. Wow, way to be a downer iTunes....

Final Battle:
Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day

Death Scene:
Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me - U2

Funeral Song:
Light's Out - Billy Redfield

End Credits:
Move Bitch, Get Out the Way - Ludacris. Apparently, I go out hard.

I was right about Billy Donovan.

I would just like the record to state that I was right about Billy Donovan. He is a skeezer, and I hope the world knows it.

I don't want to hear anymore hype about how his heart is in Gainesville and that he made a mistake by signing with the Magic. No.

That's a load of crap.

Now that no one will wipe his ass for him after his morning constitutional like they did a UF, NOW the reality sets in. The lifespan of an NBA coach who can't immediately produce after you win back to back national titles will be about 3.4 seconds.

Billy D, how do you think your loyal Gator fans will receive you after you ditched them for a bigger paycheck and the possibility of more exposure after the amount of press you've gotten from winning a pair of Sears Trophies?

You're officially gator bait Billy-D. I hope you enjoy it. I know I will.

You get the Womp Womp Award of the Week.

Hump Day

Yes, all. It's hump day. Again.

I was sick today so in my search for humps that weren't Fergalicious, this is the only one that made me laugh.



CAMEL HUMPS.

Not to be confused with camel.........toes.

Gross. Sorry.

That's all I got.

More soon.......

Hear No Evil

If there's one thing I know in this world, it's music.

For those of you who may not know, I was/am a pretty big music dork. From elementary school through high school, I was HEAVILY involved in the instrumental music scene. While some people might have the Pavlovian response of "pshh, loooooser!" I could not disagree more. I attribute my math SAT scores solely to the fact that my parents let me take music lessons as a kid. Otherwise, I think the concept of fractions would still confound me to this day.

Aside from my awesome ability to determine was meter a song is written in within 2 bars or make snotty comments when some American Idol wannabe is completely out of tune and "pitchy, dawg," I have this bizarre ability to listen to music and commit their hooks to memory.

(For those of you who don't know what a hook is, I refer to you Wikipedia)

So after I downloaded the new Maroon 5 album and listened to it on my way up to my sister's place in western Maryland this Memorial Day weekend, I realized... damn you Adam Levine. You've yoinked a hook from one of John Mayer's songs.

As an experiment, listen to "Nothing Lasts Forever" on Maroon 5's new release.

Then, listen to "Stop This Train" on John Mayer's album Continuum.

Now, not only are the song structures strikingly similar, it seems as though the progressions are the same as well.

Maybe it's just the conspiracy theorist in me running amok again. But as I said in the beginning....

If there's one thing in this world I know, it's music!

Hump Day

Before It Was Hot presents....

Hump day.

Bringing you a new hump variety every Wednesday.

The hump for Wednesday, May 23, 2007 is....



The SPEED HUMP

Sometimes referred to as speed bumps, this often annoying but somewhat necessary lump of asphalt, tar, and gravel saves more squirrels, school children, and ladies than you could shake a stick it.

The Hump of the Week will be back this time next week with another hump variety.

...really, that's all I got.

Give me caffeine or give me death

If the world only knew that kind of sacrifices it takes to get a caffeinated beverage on this campus, they would be SHOCKED and APPALLED.

The greatest single day in my office's history was the day I discovered they had put in a 20oz bottle sosda machine in the basement of our building.

Seriously, I came up one morning and displayed my 20oz Mountain Dew like it was the Holy Grail.

....and on the 7th day God created caffeinated beverages on command...

and it was good.

But my students, to the shock and horror of the entire staff, realized today that Pepsi, the lovely corporate machine that they are, raised their prices by a quarter.

That's right. They raised their prices overnight from 1 George Washington to 2 George Washingtons. A DOLLAR TWENTY FIVE.

It's bad enough that a bitch can't get a Coke product around here without selling her favorite shoes and an ovary. Now you're going to charge me another 25 cents for your already inferior PepsiCo product?

Last time I checked sugar futures, they weren't going up. Nor was the price of high fructuose corn syrup, caramel color, or carbon dioxide. Perhaps this is the beginning of the trickle down affect that increasing gas prices is having on our economy.

I think I should write a letter to my congressperson and say "we must stop our dependency on foreign oil if for no other reason that it's costing me more money not only at the gas pump, but at my beverage pump."

The Next Life Step

It's that magically reminiscent time of year, where Earth makes the magical leap from certain spring into uncertain summer; a leap that makes newly anointed graduates with a Bachelor's degree in the field du jour quiver in their Reefs and ask "what's next?"

That's not a question easily answered, even three years out of college. The only thing that becomes easier to know the older you get is what you'll inevitably be doing Monday morning. But even that question, compounded by the pressures of getting ahead, getting even, and getting hitched, becomes increasingly daunting.

Insert quarter-life crisis metaphor here.

I never thought that I would be one to have a 'life crisis' of sorts. I take back every cliched eye-roll I've thrown at someone who has mentioned a quarter life crisis. Including you, Mr. Mayer.

I'm pretty sure that it's in your mid-twenties that your powers of self reflection and awareness are at their keenest. You begin to realize the inertia of your life. The more you do the more you're expected to do. The more you do something you hate, the more you think you have to get out of it now before you get old and don't have a choice. And that poses a problem.

It's quirky, even favorable, to have a couple of jobs right after you graduate; to float around and see what's a best fit for you. Your parents support you, your friends are still in graduate school so what do they know about the real world and you know, feeding themselves. Then you hit that magical 3 year the-honeymoon-is-over mark. Where you have to shit or get off the pot. You're in a career or you'd better have figured out your ideal career, or what graduate program to throw yourself headfirst into, or you get painted with a flaky brush.

However, the look of horror when you tell the people in your life of a career in flux doesn't even approach the look of horror that flashes across the eyes of a parent who realizes their offspring is 24 and hasn't dated anyone serious since they still had their provisional license.

The wedding invitations come, the save the date cards flood the mailbox, and you realize that the clock is ticking. Not the biological clock; the happily ever after clock. Oh yeah, and there's that "you only have 4 more months to get a date to your best friend's wedding" clock.

That one ticks a little louder than the biological or happily ever after clock.

But here's to a chick that takes a licking and keeps on ticking.