Hodgepodge

A few morsels of flotsam and jetsam from my mind as I get ready to head out for the evening...

• I did my taxes over the weekend. As per usual, as a self-employed person that gets screwed by having to pay both employer and employee shares of FICA and because I never send enough in estimated advance payments, I owed money. As not per usual, what I owed was more than $3,000, which makes me think I am doing myself a disservice by doing my taxes myself. Tax laws are so complicated, the forms are so elaborate, the software for making it easier to do so layered that I'm fairly sure I could have filed with a lower amount due if I knew what to deduct and claim and so on. I used the simplest/cheapest small business tax prep software I could find and it didn't guide me through all the stuff I seem to remember doing in prior years, but because tax laws change all the time I don't know what to think of that. I even know a tax prep professional personally, so I think next year I'll just pay her to do it and maybe I'll end up a little better off. The days of a 10 minute filing by form 1040-EZ are past me.
• Tomorrow night episode 6 of the final season of Star Trek: Picard drops, and boy am I ever here for that. Of course, I've loved every iteration of Star Trek (except Voyager and the JJ movies, of course), even when they're problematic and the writing slips (looking at you, Discovery writers' room, and no, I haven't forgotten Berman & Braga's incredibly lame time-war arc on Enterprise). But kudos to Terry Matalas and company for this season of Picard. Why is this the last season?! More, more! Spinoff!
• Former president Clownface von F*@%#stick told his cult of minions that he would be arrested today. Hasn't happened yet. Obviously, that was just another lie from him to generate fundraising, to get more of his red-hatted dupes to mortgage their houses for his legal fund, but I was still hopeful. Alas.
• Last night I was working here at my desk and heard a vicious-sounding fight between a cat and something else out my window. I peeked out to see what was what, but it was too dark, so I went outside to check it out, but by then combatants had fled. I just hope the cat wasn't seriously hurt. I bring this up just to say, as a lover of cats, please keep your kitties indoors whenever you can, especially at night. I know some of them love to explore and such, and once they get that into their systems it's a hard thing to curtail, but they will live longer and healthier lives. Give them stuff to climb on and room to run around inside if you have the space, windows to peer out of, toy mice to hunt. Keep them away from cars, coyotes, big dogs, even other territorial cats that might harm or kill them, not to mention parasites and diseases. I'm fortunate that I have a big condo with lots of space for my two to chase each other around in and that they've never shown an interest in bolting outside. When I was a kid I went through a string of pet cats that all died awful deaths because they went outside. My indoor cats lived to be 15½, 17, 18, and 19, my current two younger ones I hope will break 20.
• This went kind of under the radar, but President Biden vetoed a bill yesterday. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy whined in response: “In his first veto, Biden just sided with woke Wall Street over workers. Tells you exactly where his priorities lie.” You know what, Kevin McCarthy is right. In that one thing, anyway. It does tell us where the president's priorities lie. They lie with the environment, working people, and the future. They do not lie with the short-term greed and profiteering of corporate moguls. The bill in question would have reinstated a Trump-era law that prohibited administrators of government retirement plans from considering environmental impacts or potential lawsuits when making investment decisions. Heaven forbid! Consider the likelihood that a company will be sued for its malfeasance when deciding whether or not to invest in it? Heinous! Mustn't be allowed! Give thought to whether or not a company is poisoning the planet before investing civil servants' retirement earnings in it? Outrageous! Poison and destruction should be irrelevant to making oil barons richer! Sit down and shut up, McCarthy, you spineless yet evil weasel.

OK, I have to go. Umpiring to do, followed by a hopefully spoiler-free viewing of the WBC championship game—being played right now as I type!—when I get home.