It's April. What does that mean? It means it's time for me to bitch about taxes again.

It's amazing, that for twenty years now, I have made an effort every single year to make this as easy and painless on myself as possible.

I'm not talking about saving money, or getting the biggest deduction like most of the pathetic U.S. ... I'm just talking about making it easy to get the shit paid so I can get back to my life.

What's most amazing is that I have failed every single year for the past 20.

Well, we got another few inches of snow last night, but far less than the doomsayers were predicting. Anyone run out of toilet paper yet?

I came in to work early this morning. It was worth it. With the roads nearly empty, I was able to fly along in my Subaru ... skidding everywhere, snow flying ... with no worries that the other drivers would ruin my fun.

I hate to shop. For a long time, I used to think it was just a personal thing, but I'm starting to think that's its really not my fault.

The other day I tripped over a song my Micah Wolf that impressed me so much that I decided to buy the CD. (remember CDs?)

Micah isn't quite Aerosmith, so finding someone who was selling his older album was a little difficult. Amazon had it, but I don't like Amazon, so I looked around a bit in the hopes that someone else would be selling it to no avail. So, back to Amazon.

I've been getting mystery calls on my cell phone for a few weeks now. I haven't answered them, assuming that if the call were important, the caller would leave a message. No messages were left.

Finally, today, I answered the call. Lucky for me, it was a criminal telemarketing scam. This gives me an opportunity to do my civic duty and warn everyone about this.

First off, the number the call came from was 612-808-5643. The company claims to be "Freedom Choice Financial".

Let's look at their crimes:

If you ever stay up late at night and end up watching those late-night advertisements, you've probably noticed the formula they use:

1. Tell you that you have a problem. Do your friends think that you stink?
2. Establish that their competitors don't solve the problem, and are actually embarrassing or dangerous to try. Normal deodorants can't mask your stench, or they smell too strong and freak everyone out. Some of them actually cause nasty rashes, requiring months in intensive care to recover from.
   

Can you prove it?

Because, if you can't then you'll probably have to pay up.

Because I only lived in the city of Pittsburgh for half of the year in 2008, I owe them a full year's worth of taxes. It may sound illogical to us intellectual types, but you see, I'm a lying bastard, and the only way to get out of paying a full year's taxes to the city is to get a letter signed and sealed from the borough I lived in for the first half of the year attesting to the fact that I paid their taxes.

I try desperately to put content on this site, and usually fail because I'm too busy with other things.

But there's one thing you can count on to rile me up enough to cause me to write, no matter how busy I am.

Yes, it's tax time again, and boy is my asshole sore.

Granted, I'm not getting raped nearly as bad as H&R Block raped my friends Paul and Jamie, but the IRS and their lackies are trying ... oh, they're trying.

As the holidays approach, it's a good time to write about scams.

Or maybe it isn't, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Saw an ad in a magazine lately for tree trimming/removal services, which interested me because I have some trees that I might need some professional work done on. Lo and behold, it includes a coupon: "$250 off any service of $600 or more."

Sounds like a good deal ... except ...

"Must present coupon prior to quote."

Perhaps I'm a bit paranoid, but if I were to whip out said coupon, wouldn't the quoter:

Like many people out there, I hate spam. I expect I have less brethren who hate it so much that they make an actual effort to do something about it, but that's me. I report every spam email I get through the SpamCop reporting service, and you should to.

Usually this reporting results in very little, but it generates statistical data that puts pressure on companies to solve the problem and allows mail server administrators (like myself) to decide who to refuse mail from.

It's tax time. That means pain and suffering. For the first time in quite a while, however, I don't feel like it's my fault.

I tried using a service called TaxAct Online. They (allegedly) offer a free service, as well as add-on services for a fee.

I decided to use the free service, because my 2007 taxes should be simple (I didn't do anything fancy with my money in 2007, so the taxes shouldn't be difficult).