When Sales Tax Attacks

I'm still looking for that rez even though we're back home now. So no long post today. Just this little surprise courtesy of the city of Lynchburg, VA.

That is not a typo.

I was so stunned, I looked it up. The Commonwealth of Virginia has a 5% sales tax. Lynchburg has an additional 6.5% sales tax! That's on all items, by the way. Once I was aware of it, I began looking at all of my receipts including the hotel receipt.

If my city ever thinks of something this vile, I might run for office.

Shoe Coffee

I said I'd provide more details today about the horrors of driving, but, alas, I'm still seeking a mender (WTB! PST! KTHXBAI!). Then I looked at the clock and realized it was 1 a.m. and decided I should push something I was going to save for later this week.

There was a piece of plastic from a coffee cup on the leg rest in our hotel room Saturday. I said it was definitely not ours.

Pictured: definitely not ours.

Evil Space Monkey: "No, that came out of my shoe, remember?"
Oracle of Truth: "Why was there a piece of coffee cup in your shoe?"
Evil Space Monkey: "I don't know. I blame you."
Oracle of Truth: "I do not drink coffee from shoes."

And that's why I'm the Oracle of Truth, boys and girls. Where she wants to weigh down the facts with blame, I cut right to the heart—the kernel, if you will—of the matter, and unveil the Truth™.

Also, I had nothing to do with that thing. I can't remember the last time I had coffee from a black-lidded cup.

WT* Wednesday

Normally, I would do this as Wordless Wednesday (if that sort of thing were possibly for a wordfiend like me). This picture, however, requires commentary.

I don't...understand....

Over the weekend, during my recent car troubles, I was trying to figure out where to find the camshaft position sensor on my car. So I started to type "Where to find (camshaft position sensor on a 2006 Nissan Sentra)." I just happened to stop after typing "Where to find" and this came up.

For the record, I have never searched on prostitutes in Baltimore before. Not only am I not that sort of person, but, seriously, Baltimore routinely leads the country in syphilis.

Also, I don't play Skyrim.

Anyway, it's times like these that I wish Autocomplete Me were still a full-on site.

Somnambupocalypse

Over the past week, I have learned from my dreams that I am apparently an anarchist extremist living in a college dorm while working on his Ph.D. The former is directly attributable to taxes while the latter is apparently a demonstration of the phenomenal cosmic power of pizza.

Now that I mention it, there's a pretty good pizza place in the town in which I went to college....

But I digress.

My wife has asked why she hasn't been in my dreams, to which I responded:

Seems legit.

My most recent dream is making me think there may be something to this whole aliens thing.

Date Night, Adjunct Style

It may come as a surprise to those who know me that Valentine's Day is not my favorite holiday. Wait...there's a word missing from that sentence. 'Not!' That's the word.

It may not come as a surprise to those who know me that Valentine's Day is not my favorite holiday. See, I prefer to love my wife every day of the year.

Speechless (because I'm lame).

It's not that I'm incapable of romance or smooveness. I have a story or two I could tell, but that would be bragging.

Also, Tuesday is a stupid day for a holiday.

Pizza is a Strange Mistress

I don't know what I've been eating this week, but I've got another dream to talk about today. I mean, obviously, I know what I've been eating. I had pizza for dinner last night.

Possibly an explanation.

That would normally suffice except this dream came at 10 a.m. today (Tuesday is a stupid day), a full 11 hours after I had pizza. So...

Delusions of Anarchy

Last night, I went to sleep very late. This tends to happen on Monday nights for some reason. I ended up having a lucid dream in which, for some reason, I was an anarchist extremist.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to wear a tie.

Yes, for some reason unbeknownst to me, my libertarian tendencies were somnambulantly extrapolated to a surprising degree. In this dream, I decided to act on this fervent extemism to reform the American government...

...by doing something in Eastern Europe?

Stream of Unconsciousness

Tuesday's always a long day, and evil men have made it longer. I don't have anything funny on my mind and a tragic lack of pictures on the phone to share.

This is most indecorous.

Which is a word too sophisticated for my phone.

There are over 170,000 words in the English language and dog may be two of them.

On Friday, I began application to a Ph.D. program. Though I have been promised 1500 to 2000 pages of reading per week for the next half decade or so, I am less intimidated by the program than by the application process.

I don't want to dog it after all.

IP over Avian Carriers

The Space Monkey and I were watching TV night when the subject of carrier pigeons came up. She thought she recalled that homing/carrier pigeons were extinct or nearly extinct. I didn't think so, so I looked it up. Then I came across this:

The humorous IP over Avian Carriers (RFC 1149) is an Internet protocol for the transmission of messages via homing pigeon. Originally intended as an April Fools' Day RFC entry, this protocol was implemented and used, once, to transmit a message in Bergen, Norway on April 28, 2001. 

In September 2009, a South African IT company, based in Durban, pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a data packed 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest internet service provider, Telkom. The pigeon named Winston took an hour and eight minutes to carry the data 80 km (50 mi). Including downloading, it took two hours, six minutes, and 57 seconds for the data to arrive, the same amount of time it took to transfer 4% of the data over the ADSL. —Wikipedia

Wait...what?

Out of Funny

I'm out of funny for the day.

And I do feel bad about that.

The lesson learned is that I clearly need to write these earlier in the day. Until then, XOXO.

Delusions of Finality

The funny has been drained from me today.

Winter in the DMV

Continuing on a theme from last Tuesday, here's what the weather was like today in Savage.

I know what you're thinking, but my wipers do actually work.

This is what winter's like here in the DMV.

Day of Rest

So I'm thinking I might do the NaBloPoMo for December too. I already have three epic posts...titled. The time and energy simply elude me at the moment.

But Soon™.

Until then, some rest.

Basement cat demands it.

Home

Is a beautiful place.

The trip to and from West Virginia has reminded me of something very important. There are a lot of places in this country (and world) that I'd really love to go see.

But they're way over there.

On a side note, my brothers-in-law and I are all in for this.