WEDNESDAY #1957

Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes — and for free. You'd open up a pre-filled return, see what the government thinks you owe, make any needed changes and be done. The miserable annual IRS shuffle, gone.

It's already a reality in Denmark, Sweden and Spain. The government-prepared return would estimate your taxes using information your employer and bank already send it. Advocates say tens of millions of taxpayers could use such a system each year, saving them a collective $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time, according to one estimate...

Well, for one thing, it doesn't help that it's been opposed for years by the company behind the most popular consumer tax software — Intuit, maker of TurboTax. Conservative tax activist Grover Norquist and an influential computer industry group also have fought return-free filing.

You, as I, are going to find this hard to believe.
A manager at my bar/pizza palace had to fire a young women and used, as work habit problems, the word "punctual". She asked what it meant. This child is in college.
He, the manager, was so astounded by this revelation that he shared the conversation with other employees. Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR of his employees had no idea what PUNCTUAL meant....and two of the four are in college and one is the child I told you about before...the one with a 3.9 GPA. 
I weep for the future.

Now, how weird is the human brain.
My cart has a turn signal, but it does not center itself after the turn. Rather, it emits a very irritating alarm if you leave it on for more than a minute or so.
I travel to my afternoon bar on the exact same route everyday. My first turn is left, which leads up to blocks to a slight rise to a stop sign. If I forget to re-center the turn signal, the alarm goes off mere feet from the stop sign. I NEVER remember to re-center the turn signal, but each time I near the stop sign I sense what is about to happen and re-center it micro-seconds before the annoying alarm. Thus the power of negative reinforcement.

This thing floating over a British town freaked people out...

Come to find out, the BBC reports that it was in fact nearby Warwick Castle testing its fireball-shooting trebuchet, which is basically as badass as this story could have gotten short of a full-scale alien invasion.

Got two minutes for a delightful film?
It's titled "The Futility of Existence", and I think you will like it....I did.

Nature....I mean damn....

Most Americans seek a tax return just high enough to barely keep them out of prison.

OOMVO...

 That may very well be true....I'm just sayin'.

That cartoon reminds me of my very favorite joke: 

A masochist and a sadist marry. She said “Hurt me, hurt me,” and he said “No.”

Think those guards are for show only? Think again...

People fully vaccinated against measles could lose some of that protection as they get older. That means teenagers, college students, and adults could, potentially, contract and pass along measles in outbreaks that begin with younger, unvaccinated children.

This is the guy I would want to talk to in a crowd...

When I was a kid I thought my handwriting would improve as I grew older.

I want any of you to explain the sanity of telling Americas below the age of 21 that they can't drink, but ARE allow to dance naked, drive an Abrams tank in combat and be charged as an adult in court. Please...try to explain that to me.

Selfie at the exact right moment. Who would have thought a ship that big could....well, look for yourself...

Back when all men wore hats...

I thought that one or both of these women should have been the next host of The Tonight Show...

A young man once asked me: "You've been married to two women. I'm thinking about getting married. Got any advice for me"

I said, "I have never been to your house, to see how you live, but do you think a grown man ought to live that way?"

These images reminded me of that encounter....

And yes, he's using the entire range top.

I further asked him to imagine the home where he grew up. And that that home had a woman...his mother. THAT is the way people were meant to live.

When I realize my wife and I have become separated in Walmart. 

OOMVO...

A room with every surface a blackboard...

 I find it seductive.

This is another of my heroes...

When warning of drugs, one should know the difference between except and accept.

 This shit is fucking TRUE!!!

Life is like a movie. If you’ve sat through more than half of it and it’s sucked every second so far, it probably isn’t going to get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. 

A repost for my newer viewers...

I’m very worried about using really cheap products because I fear the underpaid people who made it jacked off in it….like it’s my fault!

Ladies and gentlemen, this may be the next viral meme...

 His face just says it all...

This is in my hometown.

 The owner is so fucking racist that he has white power propaganda leaflets next to the register in his restaurant. But black people STILL eat there because the barbecue is just so fucking good.

This is one of the things a regret most about getting old...

 Because I was camping out of a truck, I did take along aluminum, disposable trays to cook in. I always felt a little guilty, but most times there was really no place to wash a real pan.

SYDSE....(shit you don't see everyday)...

To imagine that this was once a liquid fills me with awe...

Drive a bike on the street and no one bats an eye. Drive a car on the sidewalk and everybody loses their minds.

Somebody told me that when Amish plow horses got too old to work they are the favorite animals to pull New York City carriages. The only problem is getting them adjusted to automobiles...

Politically Correct: A term used by whiney, overly sensitive pansies who need everything sugar-coated for them.

 I am absolutely certain that this child believes that her god is an awesome god. She thinks that there is a creator of the entire universe(s?) who will let you live in peace for e-tern-i-ty. Yep, an infinity number of of eons in bliss...no fear of black holes or super novae. And all you have to do is believe...REALLY believe...that this creator sent his "son" to earth during the Bronze Age and among other things he said that all slaves should respect their masters. Oh, but he does like good wine.

Good luck with that.

Can a machine be a work of art? 

 I'm thinking yes.

This happened in 1989?!?

 I remember following that on the news every minute I had free.......free. No pun intended. I could very well put this at the very end of this post...the "bitch about the government" segment. Those Chinese have - willingly or unwillingly in some cases - allowed their government to control every part of their lives. And much more interestingly to me, is that it was the young people who "rebelled". But young people with signs are no match for men in riot gear and tanks.

How long do you think it will take for the airlines to catch on to this?

Just another reason to love photography...

Bumping into someone at the grocery store, chat a while and saying goodbye, then seeing them in the next aisle….and what do we do? We fucking ignore them like they are invisible.

'Merica....

Melting aluminum with an electromagnet.

You know that awkwardness of trying to have a face to face conversation with someone with a glass eye.

My wife told me she likes it when I come quickly. She takes it as a complement.

(women like that are hard to find)

YOUR MOM: "You never call and the federal government will back me up on that."

You may think that much funnier than I do. I find it rather....appalling. And I, like every other Americans, feel powerless to combat the assault on our guaranteed freedoms. There is a rather cynical term for that very thing - Politics of Resignation.