Day: March 10, 2005

Nah, hate’s too mild a word…

I hate doing my taxes. I also hate paying someone else to do them (a function of my Tightwad Philosphy of Lifeâ„¢). My compromise, for the last 12 years, has been to use relatively inexpensive computer software to make a compromise between these two in-tension feelings.

When Parsons sold out to Intuit, it wasn’t too bad. I could still import my Parsons material from th previous year into Turbotax.

Even when Intuit decided one year to install some really malicious spyware (crippled, totally crippled my CD burner on the machine I had Turbotax on. had to scrub the machine and re-install Windows to get my full-functionality back on the burner), I managed to grit my teeth and bear it, because at least doing my taxes was pretty darned easy.

but this year… Familiar with Kim du Toit’s “RCOB” (red curtain of blood) expression? THIS year, Turbotax found and imported by previous year’s Turbotax file all right.

And recognized absolutely NO usable data!

Scrub that. Try a backup file (of which I had four, on different hard drives and CDs).

Same thing.

RCOB.

Oh. You have NO IDEA how enraged I am with Intuit. No. Earthy. Idea. Were I still in my 2003 clinically obese body, I probably would have stroked out… seriously. You have no idea how much I now HATE Intuit. With. A. Passion. One that I dare not give vent to, because

I HAVE TO DO MY STINKING TAXES!!!!!!

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh………….

I don’t know… but it’s an intriguing thought

OK, this post is as wild a departure as can be from anything that can be considered normal for this blog (whatever normal for this blog is?I still don’t really have that pegged down).

I thought I had an explanation for my transformation a year ago from clinically obese to well within normal range. Then I started reading some USDA-referenced info about drops in food nutrition—vitamin and mineral content—and began to wonder about something. I have noticed a change in my appetite. I feel “fuller” faster and have fewer cravings for just… stuff. Could my altered appetite be due in part to a substantive change in my nutrition?

Yeh, maybe. When my wife switched brands of vitamin supplementation (something we’d researched as a part of her cardio/PPS health regimen), I began taking a subset of the same brand of super-duper “patented formulation” (well, they are) vitamins, as well. Yeh, I also ate the “fat conversion activity bar” that was developed for use in the Arctic, and I’m sure it had some impact. But my exercise levels have, um, leveled off and even declined over the winter months and no gain in weight, inches, whatever.

And no increase in appetite or junk food cravings as in past years when my idiosyncratic form of cabin fever set in.

Could it be that the cravings for more stuff to stuff in me were in part because the food I was stuffing myself with was deficient in nutrients my body needed?

Maybe. I just don’t know. I do know that after years of failed diet and exercise programs, now in my *cough cough something* 50s I have been able to not only lose a good 50+ pounds of excess weight (and BUNCHES of inches in chest, waist, etc.), but I have been able to keep it off for the past year.

Could one (surely of many) factor in the obesity problem here in the U.S. be that folks’ bodies are craving vitamins and minerals not available in the “healthy” (note: I abhor that construction/use when used in place of the term “healthful”—but that’s a different rant entirely) fresh fruits and vegetables we’ve been encouraged to consume, let alone in all the crap we stuff ourselves with?

Maybe. I just don’t know.

But it is an intriguing idea.

Back to regularly scheduled ranting.

Check that. I notice I can’t lay my figurative hands (via mouse/keyboard) on the pdf I downloaded from the USDA with the data that has been brewing in the back of my mind concerning this thought. Well, the same data seems to have been used in this article. Maybe that’s enough for now.

Back to the salt mines.

[bump] Who needs the pressure whenthere’s so much good stuff to choose from?

But really, now, when presented something like this comment to a post on Jackson’s Junction
about Dan Blather’s signoff as C–B.S. “News” anchor, I’m tempted to label it “quote of the day”—

“O’l Dan Looked tighter than a long-necked wombat wearing a hat full of cranberries.”–’Ken’

It’s great art like that that convinced me to stop attempting poetry. That sentence just begs to be set to music… Where, oh where, is a Marty Robbins when you need one?

Ahh! Found Marty Robbins’ backup guys…

[Not!] Apparently they’re underwater or something, but maybe it’ll give Dan Blather’s Last Standâ„¢ a lil background music… (see below)