Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Putting the tax in "taxonomy"
Magazine articles on taxes are like bible commentaries: They can be useful, but you need to check the source, the bible. Turbotax is like the New American Standard bible: Not as simplified as Today's English Version, or as user-friendly as The Message, it is still much simpler to understand than the IRS publications, which are the King James Version of the tax world. Like the KJV, a lot of people think that the IRS pubs are the actual text, but--of course--neither one is.
The thousands of pages of tax laws are the original language. The tax code is law, not gospel, so I guess it would be Hebrew. This actually works quite well, because--just as in Judiasm--the actual law is the written code (the torah) and what the judges have decided (or the rabbis, in the talmud).
But us regular folk have to depend on the translations. And if we make a mistake, we have to hope for grace and mercy!
The thousands of pages of tax laws are the original language. The tax code is law, not gospel, so I guess it would be Hebrew. This actually works quite well, because--just as in Judiasm--the actual law is the written code (the torah) and what the judges have decided (or the rabbis, in the talmud).
But us regular folk have to depend on the translations. And if we make a mistake, we have to hope for grace and mercy!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Apropos of...something.
"Who are you? And what have you done with my father?!
Oh. You are my father. Damn."
Lines Spielberg left out of Star Wars.
Yeah.
That's what it is.
Oh. You are my father. Damn."
Lines Spielberg left out of Star Wars.
Yeah.
That's what it is.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
And another thing...
Another annoying thing about Northwest is that, when you go to book your flight, they tell you that all of the seats, except for some middle ones, are booked. So we were going to have to sit behind each other. But the truth is, those seats aren't really booked. Some time before the flight (it might only be a day or two), they offer to sell you those seats for an extra $20-$25! Pretty cheeky, if you ask me. Fortunately, one of the available seats was next to my lovely bride, so I only had to pony up an extra $25.
To add insult to injury, the flight was nowhere near full, so I could have moved to that seat for free: We actually had the entire row on that side to ourselves. On the second half of the flight, the plane was too small for that: all the seats were either window or aisle, and on the way home, I was able to get us seats together (even on the rescheduled flight, which was actually pretty full).
On the, um, "bright" side, they only charge $15 for the first bag, instead of $25 like some other airlines. I wonder how long before they put a credit card reader on the...no, I don't want to give them any ideas!
One really spooky thing was that, while we were on the trip, I got an email claiming that I had purchased tickets on Northwest's web site, and they had charged my credit card. I just needed to open up the attached zip file to see what the tickets were. It looked really legit, and I almost fell for it, since we were on Northwest, but there were actually quite a few reasons why it couldn't be true. But I can see how people fall for these things.
While it probably wouldn't have hurt my PDA to open the file, I just tossed it out. Why take a chance, why encourage the scumbags? A day or so later, I read an article talking about "the new Northwest Airlines trojan", and how they were seeing a lot of it recently. I guess I was on the leading edge of that one...
To add insult to injury, the flight was nowhere near full, so I could have moved to that seat for free: We actually had the entire row on that side to ourselves. On the second half of the flight, the plane was too small for that: all the seats were either window or aisle, and on the way home, I was able to get us seats together (even on the rescheduled flight, which was actually pretty full).
On the, um, "bright" side, they only charge $15 for the first bag, instead of $25 like some other airlines. I wonder how long before they put a credit card reader on the...no, I don't want to give them any ideas!
One really spooky thing was that, while we were on the trip, I got an email claiming that I had purchased tickets on Northwest's web site, and they had charged my credit card. I just needed to open up the attached zip file to see what the tickets were. It looked really legit, and I almost fell for it, since we were on Northwest, but there were actually quite a few reasons why it couldn't be true. But I can see how people fall for these things.
While it probably wouldn't have hurt my PDA to open the file, I just tossed it out. Why take a chance, why encourage the scumbags? A day or so later, I read an article talking about "the new Northwest Airlines trojan", and how they were seeing a lot of it recently. I guess I was on the leading edge of that one...
Our "tail" of woe
Our luggage is found...no thanks, really, to NWA. I think my brain is still mssing, though...
Here's how our return trip broke down, and our luggage was...misplaced.
Our plane, which was scheduled to leave at 6:40 AM (meaning we had to get up at 4 AM, which was 1 AM our time) had "mechanical problems". What this meant was that someone was too lazy to do the maintenance, so the Oxygen tank wasn't full. Also, there was no water for coffee or snacks on the snack cart--those weren't mechanical problems, but it reinforces the idea that they just decided to head home early. Makes you wonder what else they slacked off on.
Anyway, being a holiday (MLK), we had to wait an hour to get someone to top off the tank. As we only had 45 minutes to get our next plane, we missed it. No problem, they could put us on a flight nine hours later. As much as I love God's frozen wasteland, spending 9 hours in the Minneapolis/St Paul airport was not my idea of fun. So I got us on a flight into Frisco only a couple hours later, and got some friends to pick us up.
Our luggage, however, didn't follow us; it was on that flight 9 hours later. Once that flight came in, I called Northwest, and they had no information on our luggage, 2.5 hours after it landed. I could only talk to the 800 number person, and they said that they would love to give us the number for our local baggage claim folks, but it wasn't actually available in their system. I tried to find it in google, but no luck. I finally went to bed.
The next morning, their web site said that our luggage had been sent to a delivery company. They gave us a phone number for that company, and--finally--the local baggage number. Or so we thought. The delivery company's phone number was disconnected, and the baggage number was constantly busy. I finally found a number for the delivery company, up in Oakland or somewhere. They said "we sold that part of the business 3 months ago", and gave me another number to try. We called them, and they said that they had no record of our luggage. I called Northwest again, and they finally found me a number for San Jose, but that number just went to a recording. (It was a 441- number, so it might be the one below. I don't remember).
Finally, I decided to go back to the airport and get in their face. There's no Northwest office in the baggage area, but there is a Delta one, and--as they kept telling us the whole time--Delta and Northwest are now one. Even if they aren't really quite. So I went and talked to the Delta guy, and he poked his keyboard a little, and said that there was no record of our luggage. Great. I wasn't going away, though, so he asked me to wait, closed up his little office, and went to "talk to the Northwest folks". About 5 minutes later, he returned with our luggage. So I guess the delivery company was right, they really didn't have our luggage!
Sheesh, if they weren't going to deliver our luggage, why didn't they just say so in the first place?
As I thought about this whole episode, I wondered why they would do this. Didn't it cost them something to do this? Then I realized that all the inconvenience and cost was on our part: The plane we got bumped to was flying anyway, and so putting us on it didn't cost them a dime. Ditto that family heading to Disneyland that got split up on two flights 4 hours apart. It didn't matter to Northwest that this family would have to wait 5 and 9 hours in Minneapolis and then half would have to wait another 4 hours in LA. It didn't matter that there was no water and only a bit of food and drinks on the flight. And if they have a fixed contract with the delivery company, it doesn't even matter if they have to deliver a few bags--if they manage to get around to it. And there's not a whole lot of choices in flight any more, so what do they care?
Northwest baggage claim, San Jose's phone number is listed as (408) 441-5502 in the airport. You might also try (408) 414-4503 or (408) 441-4503, I couldn't see that one as well on the agent's bulletin board.
The new delivery company is City Services, (408) 573-7067
Update:
I received a comment via private email from someone who got a call from City Services insisting that they had her bags, based on some...questionable assumptions. When she told them that they weren't her bags, they essentially said "OK, we're just going to give up, then". She came away with this moral:
She went on to say "CARRY ON at all costs". I'm not sure I'd go that far, but then, my luggage hasn't been lost for nine years!
Here's how our return trip broke down, and our luggage was...misplaced.
Our plane, which was scheduled to leave at 6:40 AM (meaning we had to get up at 4 AM, which was 1 AM our time) had "mechanical problems". What this meant was that someone was too lazy to do the maintenance, so the Oxygen tank wasn't full. Also, there was no water for coffee or snacks on the snack cart--those weren't mechanical problems, but it reinforces the idea that they just decided to head home early. Makes you wonder what else they slacked off on.
Anyway, being a holiday (MLK), we had to wait an hour to get someone to top off the tank. As we only had 45 minutes to get our next plane, we missed it. No problem, they could put us on a flight nine hours later. As much as I love God's frozen wasteland, spending 9 hours in the Minneapolis/St Paul airport was not my idea of fun. So I got us on a flight into Frisco only a couple hours later, and got some friends to pick us up.
Our luggage, however, didn't follow us; it was on that flight 9 hours later. Once that flight came in, I called Northwest, and they had no information on our luggage, 2.5 hours after it landed. I could only talk to the 800 number person, and they said that they would love to give us the number for our local baggage claim folks, but it wasn't actually available in their system. I tried to find it in google, but no luck. I finally went to bed.
The next morning, their web site said that our luggage had been sent to a delivery company. They gave us a phone number for that company, and--finally--the local baggage number. Or so we thought. The delivery company's phone number was disconnected, and the baggage number was constantly busy. I finally found a number for the delivery company, up in Oakland or somewhere. They said "we sold that part of the business 3 months ago", and gave me another number to try. We called them, and they said that they had no record of our luggage. I called Northwest again, and they finally found me a number for San Jose, but that number just went to a recording. (It was a 441- number, so it might be the one below. I don't remember).
Finally, I decided to go back to the airport and get in their face. There's no Northwest office in the baggage area, but there is a Delta one, and--as they kept telling us the whole time--Delta and Northwest are now one. Even if they aren't really quite. So I went and talked to the Delta guy, and he poked his keyboard a little, and said that there was no record of our luggage. Great. I wasn't going away, though, so he asked me to wait, closed up his little office, and went to "talk to the Northwest folks". About 5 minutes later, he returned with our luggage. So I guess the delivery company was right, they really didn't have our luggage!
Sheesh, if they weren't going to deliver our luggage, why didn't they just say so in the first place?
As I thought about this whole episode, I wondered why they would do this. Didn't it cost them something to do this? Then I realized that all the inconvenience and cost was on our part: The plane we got bumped to was flying anyway, and so putting us on it didn't cost them a dime. Ditto that family heading to Disneyland that got split up on two flights 4 hours apart. It didn't matter to Northwest that this family would have to wait 5 and 9 hours in Minneapolis and then half would have to wait another 4 hours in LA. It didn't matter that there was no water and only a bit of food and drinks on the flight. And if they have a fixed contract with the delivery company, it doesn't even matter if they have to deliver a few bags--if they manage to get around to it. And there's not a whole lot of choices in flight any more, so what do they care?
Northwest baggage claim, San Jose's phone number is listed as (408) 441-5502 in the airport. You might also try (408) 414-4503 or (408) 441-4503, I couldn't see that one as well on the agent's bulletin board.
The new delivery company is City Services, (408) 573-7067
Update:
I received a comment via private email from someone who got a call from City Services insisting that they had her bags, based on some...questionable assumptions. When she told them that they weren't her bags, they essentially said "OK, we're just going to give up, then". She came away with this moral:
SO the moral of story is....
1) Airlines NO LONGER care to find you; they subcontract out to this 'airline delivery service'
2) this sub contractor does NOT care about accuracy or even a good samaritan trying to encourage and provide assistance;
So do NOT have ANY expectations of finding 'lost luggage' .
She went on to say "CARRY ON at all costs". I'm not sure I'd go that far, but then, my luggage hasn't been lost for nine years!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Lost...
Let's hope not!
From Reuters: "Countdown to Obama presidency as King remembered"
I'm not ready for King Obama...
I'm not ready for King Obama...
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Baby it's [a] cold inside
No, that's not my Mario impression ("itsa cold"). It's the sad fact that I didn't so much ring in the new year as rhin it in. And, while all the kleenixes wouldn't qualify as weapons of mass destruction, they could be weapons of mass discomfort.
My jokes get worse when I'm sick or tired...cue Bill Cosby:
My jokes get worse when I'm sick or tired...cue Bill Cosby:
And tired always followed sick. Worst beating I ever got in my life, my mother said, "Well I am just sick," and I said "And tired." I don't remember anything after that.Anyway, Happy New Year to all!
Up, up, up - Can only go up from here...with apologies to Shania Twain
Up, up, up - Up where my nose is gonna clear
Up, up, up - There's no way but up from here
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Emprex products stink!
Bought two Emprex (no, I won't link them, that would be too good for them) products for our vacation. The first, a multi-format memory card reader, failed before we left, and I was able to return it.
The second, a 16 Gb thumb drive, failed after we got back, with all of our vacation pictures--over 5 Gb--on it! Fortunately, I had offloaded them to my PC, but it was a close thing. Now I have to try and return the dead stick, which (at least in theory) has all our pictures on it. I hate that
.
I won't be buying any more of their products, even if they were to pay me! I strongly suggest you don't, either, unless you're into "write only" media.
The second, a 16 Gb thumb drive, failed after we got back, with all of our vacation pictures--over 5 Gb--on it! Fortunately, I had offloaded them to my PC, but it was a close thing. Now I have to try and return the dead stick, which (at least in theory) has all our pictures on it. I hate that
.I won't be buying any more of their products, even if they were to pay me! I strongly suggest you don't, either, unless you're into "write only" media.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Stupid/dangerous web site
Now, here's a really smart web site! On this auxiliary page (only read by paranoids like me
), it says (emphasis mine):
Wow. So any random person can accidentally (or purposefully) knock someone's legitimate record out of the database. Yeah. I feel good about donating online now. NOT.
), it says (emphasis mine):Please do not put the email address of the participant being donated to in the email address field of the donation form. This may cause the participant record to be overwritten in our database with the donor's information.
Wow. So any random person can accidentally (or purposefully) knock someone's legitimate record out of the database. Yeah. I feel good about donating online now. NOT.
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