Today might have been the last straw for me and my bank. They’ve really been pissing me off lately. Charging me $7.95 for a feature I don’t use. They refunded the fee last month only to charge me again THIS month for the same damn thing … which I STILL don’t use. And I go to check my account tonite … there’s a $3.00 “Service Charge” on there. Excuse me!!! What the HELL am I being charged a service charge for? I didn’t overdraw my account. I’m going to be calling them tomorrow at noon and bitching.

I believe that this weekend (if I don’t start sooner), I’m going to research the other banks in town and possibly close my account with this one and open up a new account at another bank. I’m not putting up with being charged fees just for the hell of it.

Mood: pissedoff

Yep … that’s right. I’m a Valentine’s Day Scrooge. I’m once again boycotting Valentine’s Day this year. It’s gotten to be a tradition …

I did get 2 Valentines today … but they were from girls at work.

I’m really getting sick of not having a Valentine on Valentine’s Day. Hey Cupid … where’s MY Valentine … where MY arrow? You fat little fucker …

Mood: lonely

I figured out why that one site was going to charge me even thought I met the restrictions. Turns out I needed to use the link on the IRS website to get the free return. So I did that, created a NEW return, and I can file for free. I went into the first one I did and deleted most of the stuff that I had in it. I also went to that other site and deleted all the same stuff there. Since there’s no way to delete the entire return on either site.

I’m debating if I should submit my federal and state returns yet tonite or wait ’til tomorrow. I’m mainly wondering since I have 2 returns started on the same site. As long as I don’t submit that one, I should be okay. I’ll probably end up submitting it yet tonite. The sooner I submit it, the sooner I’ll get my refund.

And now that I’m actually getting a decent refund from federal, I’m thinking that I will be getting myself a new computer monitor. I know that I should put that money in savings in case I need it at some point, but … what fun would that be?

And I know why my calculations were wrong before. I had included the 401k distribution in with the wages calculation. That wasn’t something I should have done since it was figured in after that. That’s why I file online … to catch things that I don’t realize I’ve got wrong.

Now I need to clean up the mess of tax-related papers that are on the floor next to my computer desk. I created quite a mess. LOL

:: EDIT :: As of 5:35pm today, my federal and state returns were filed.

Mood: blah

Turns out I was wrong about my taxes. I get more back from federal than I thought ($574 vs. $154), and I actually get money back from state (a whopping $6) instead of having to pay in ($52). Woohoo.

BUT … I went to the same site I used last year … they say if your AGI is less than $28,500, you can file for free. Well, my AGI is less than that, but when I get to the end of the process, it says I have to pay a fee of $32.95. ‘Scuse me?!? I sent them a message asking why and telling them to fix it. We’ll see if I get a response quickly.

Because of that, I went to the site I had used previously. I can file federal for free, but I have to pay $19.95 to file state. WTF?!? I didn’t have to in the past (I used them for my 2001 and 2002 returns).

So … I have my returns ready to go on 2 different sites. But I haven’t filed them because they’re telling me I have to pay. That’s bullshit. I didn’t in the past. I qualify for the free filing. Don’t screw me over. The government does enough of that already.

I can’t believe I’ve gotten as much done already today as I have. I haven’t accomplished this much on a weekend in a LONG time. Maybe it’s ‘cuz racing season has started and qualifying for the Daytona 500 is on today.

I had my laundry done by noon. I actually got up around 10:15am. I usually don’t get up ’til at least 11:30am or noon. I think I got up that early this morning because qualifying was on at noon, and I didn’t want to miss it. I know that I had gone back to sleep, I wouldn’t have gotten up ’til at least noon … possibly later. I had my laundry in the washers by 10:30am … it was nice not to fight the other people who live in the aparment building who leave their shit in the machines ALL DAY LONG!!

I also updated my computer to Windows XP Service Pack 2. Took me long enough to get around to doing it … LOL. But it’s done now. Went smoothly, but seemed to take forever.

While I was waiting for SP2 to finish up installing, I cleaned my kitchen, ran the dishwasher, and even defrosted my freezer. All of this done and it’s not even 2pm yet.

Now I think I’m going to do my taxes. I’ve been putting it off since I have to pay in to state this year. I file online with Turbo Tax. With my income, I can efile for free. Not sure how that’s gonna work for state since I have to pay in. Maybe I’ll just efile the federal and mail in the state after I get my federal refund back. Half of that will be going to state …

Mood: accomplished

Finally … the 2005 racing season starts tonite. The pre-race for the Bud Shootout is in about 20 min. I can’t wait. I’ve got my bracelet all ready to go. And I won’t be on the computer once the race starts … silly superstition … Can’t wait to see Dale Jr back on the track. And TrackPass from NASCAR.com is free this weekend, so I can listen to the in-car audio. I only use it when it’s a free preview of it. I’m not gonna pay the outrageous prince they charge for it … especially when I read so many people having issues with it. Honestly, I hate NASCAR.com, but where else am I going to get my NASCAR updates. They really need to make their site more user-friendly.

Oooo … it’s down to about 15 minutes now … (do I really type that slow? no … just getting distracted by the tv … LOL). Better go get ready for the race.

Mood: ecstatic

I FINALLY got my Dale Jr and Chance 2 fan sites updated for the 2005 season. I mean … the Bud Shootout is tonite!! I just haven’t felt like working on my own sites at nite after working on other people’s websites all day at work. I almost decided to shut down both sites completely. But I can’t do that.

I did realize one thing … I am SO GLAD that I converted this blog to WordPress. The race reports section of my Dale Jr site is powered by MovableType. Well … that will be changing this weekend. I went to update the templates for the new season and rebuild. Well … it didn’t work. I get ’server misconfiguration’ errors. The error log say “error: file is writable by others”. WTF?!? All I did was a minor change and then hit rebuild. That rebuild thing always pissed me off anyways. Well … it’s time I whipped up that editor that I planned quite a while ago for the race reports. Then I’ll get rid of MT altogether. Guess that’ll push back my plans to play with WP 1.5. Oh well.

Mood: working

Just wanted to test a new hack I came up with for the moods.

::EDIT:: Yippee!! It worked. I should turn that into a plugin instead of hack. But just for me. There are other mood plugins out there. I don’t think anyone would want to use mine. It’s just something I like to have.

I made a decision. I have completely removed the trackback option from my blog. I never post anything that’s trackback-worth anyway. I haven’t worked on any plugins since I first moved over to WordPress. And nothing else I post is anything anyone else would care about … LOL.

I’ve also closed all comments that are older than the middle of last month. I’m going to keep doing that I think. I’ll keep about a month’s worth of posts open to comments. If any LEGITIMATE comments are ever made on my blog, they’re usually within the first couple of days of when I made the post. Everything else is those fucking spammers. I doubt it will cut down on the crap I get from them, but it can’t hurt. And at least all those crap comments don’t end up on here or in moderation (well, sometimes they do). The vast majority of them get caught by the Spaminator and TarPit plugins I use. I need to set up a test blog to play around with WP 1.5. Don’t know when I’ll get around to that.

Mood: blah

Have you ever felt the need to just RIP your nose off of your face? That’s how I’ve felt the last couple of days. Basically, my nose is driving me nuts. It feels all itchy on the inside. And it feels like there’s a sneeze hiding up there somewhere taunting me. And I’m all stuffy. My nose is sore and raw from blowing it. And it’s not like they’re productive ‘blowings’. It relieves the pressure for a bit, but then it’s back again. Grrr … I’m gonna go die on the couch and then go to bed after CSI.

Mood: grumpy