Economic stimulus.

For once in my life, I filed my taxes well in advance of the deadline, and today I received my deservèd refund. With my check from the federal government came a small piece of paper from the SEC titled "Check Out These Saving and Investing Tips". Here are the tips:

1. Pay off credit card or high-interest debt.
2. Boost your emergency fund.
3. Beware of promises of "guaranteed returns."
4. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

What helpful advice, SEC! I will be sure to take my $17 refund check and put it to good use, paying off $11 dollars of my credit card debt, and depositing the remaining $6 into my savings account. I probably should spread it around a bit more (see tip #4), but when you only have two eggs, it's hard to to put them in more than two baskets!

Spring cleaning.

I've been cleaning out my computer recently. (It is a LENGTHY CHORE.) Tonight I came across a text file, created last October 11th, marked "notes" – I'll admit that I've stumped myself. I've no idea what the hell I was thinking about. Would you like to read it?

Don't worry: they were French cows – you've never met them.

cornflakes
omelet
french toast
smoothie
german toast
oatmeal
banana

a turkey sandwich
a tunafish sandwich
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
a tempeh, lettuce, & tomato sandwich
an eggplant sandwich

pizza
taco
soup
pork chop

I mean, it's clearly lists of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I have had a run-in with French cows. But why does this file exist? I am a complex person, that is for sure.

Miscellany.

1. Chinese people discovering fortune cookies:





2. The monetary density of things:  

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/density



3. Mushrooms on speed:

Lifestyle choices.

It occurred to me this morning that being a vegetarian is kind of like growing a beard. If you give up on it every few days and shave again, you don't have a beard. You have to really commit to it. It's especially difficult, however, when your facial hair grows as slowly and sparsely as mine. For those first weeks or months, you're not shaving, but you don't have a beard yet. I keep telling myself that this is the time when I'll make all the way to beard stage, but it never happens. It just takes too darn long. So I guess that's why I'm not a vegetarian?

If I could eat something that made my face hair come in thicker and faster, I would eat it instead of meat. That would solve both my problems.

Warm Happy Feelings.

Okay, my friends and family. This video may be old news to you. After all, it has been viewed over 40 million times on YouTube. But it is new to me. A friend told me to watch it, saying it was amazing. I thought, "okay, amazing animals, great, whatever." But I watched it, and it was AMAZING. Do watch it all the way through – Hollywood could not have scripted a more wonderful 8-minute drama.

Options.

I'm thinking about getting contact lenses, but still wearing (empty) glasses frames as a fashion accessory. Please help me understand why this is a bad idea.

In this Linten season...

I just emptied my pants pockets of all items, including all accumulated lint. There was a half-fingernail size clump of blueish-white lint in my right pants pocket, and SIX SQUARE INCHES of whitish-white lint in my left pants pocket. What a discrepancy!