I am kind of stuck going to the guy my sister uses, and he's about $500.

From earlier--thanks for the bird bath rec, -t. I am thinking more along the lines of a pedestal, since I don't have a good way to hang it, and there are too many cats around for ground level to make sense. I did find out that Redwood City thinks birdbaths are okay, as long as you clean them a lot. I will get a mister or agitator though, to help with the mosquitoes.

The system we use for spam filtering had a glitch, so no outside mail at all was going through for most of the afternoon. That was kind of nice.

Lifehacker invites in a chiropractor to talk about their "medicine": [link] And by "medicine" I don't mean the leading cause of death in the US.

I have got to wonder how much of these low-hanging skeptic fruit articles the editors of each Gawker site are published with sincerity--IO9 has a guy whose entire responsibility seems to be devoted to incorrectly paraphrasing abstracts and pushing fad science and diets.

In general, the people who rail at Nick Denton but still hang around cite IO9 and LH as the best of the bunch, but I've found LH obstinate in the face of wrong advice they've given in ways that have really simple impacts on their readers--if WD40 is really not supposed to be used that way, how many readers did they send away to apply it to everything for every reason?

ita, I figure you might find this graphic relevant: [link]

It's a Venn diagram of irrational nonsense (via Boing Boing).

It's 22.5 miles from our place in SF to Emmett's school in Albany. Except then I drive home. And then drive back to get him. And drive back home. So on those days that I have him both morning and night (every Thursday and alternate Fridays) I am commuting about 90 miles.

This is why I try to find ways to spend Thursday in the East Bay and will often camp out at a cafe to write, then do some shopping before I pick up Emmett, though I can't really get perishables.

But if he's got an away game and he's coming home with me then I could be way out past Fremont or Orinda, which would add another forty plus minutes of driving.

My morning commute usually takes about 90 minutes, but that's because I'm double dipping on one of the most congested commute routes in America - the Bay Bridge.

You've never been prevented from ordering off the kiddy menu when you're eating in? I've had my hand smacked more than once.

No fast food place has ever dared to question me when I order a kiddie meal. If I am in McDonalds, I want a damn Happy Meal.

I paid $135 for my taxes this year, but they were pretty simple. I'll get enough back to cover it and a fair bit leftover One job, one state, no real estate. If I didn't do some minimal investment I'd have trouble justifying going to my CPA. Except she's delightful and I look forward to catching with her every spring. And she gets me money back, which is a delightful trait in an acquaintance. Anyway, I shove everything tax-related into a folder throughout the year, take it to my CPA in late February, talk about travel and her grandkids for half an hour, cut her a check in early March, and a month later the government drops a couple thousand into my checking account. Which, emergencies allowing, goes right into my IRA. And I drop the receipt for that into the next year's folder, and the cycle starts again. The sheer lack of angst and stress is totally worth $135, since I have it available.

I've never had an issue ordering a Happy Meal either.

I've never had my taxes professionally done, but $480 sounds like a huge price to pay for that! Is that based on how much you're getting back, or something else?

H&R Block apparently charges based on how many forms that need to be filed. Beau (who filed the EZ) paid $162. Between needing to file in 2 states, a home sale, itemized deductions, I think the guy printed out something like 30-40 pages for me.

I HAVE had to specially request the toy at McDonald's, but they'll always give me the meal. And then I wish I had just gotten the pieces separately, because I want a bigger soda.

My tax package each year is about half an inch thick, I shudder to think what H&R Block would charge.