Moolons.

Well, we have finally untangled all the paperwork, calculations and such needed to prove to the government that we do not, in fact, owe them more than $40,000 as they've been claiming for some months now. It seems its more like they owe us close to $10,000. Tomorrow taxlady has an appointment to explain that to them, and that will lift a great weight off of both our heads, I'm sure.

Of course, the govt. being the govt., we won't see that money for months and months, while our various creditors would like us to pay up now. That, of course, is one of the constants of life.

Oops.

I didn't get very far with today's challenge:

----

He wished the phone would stop ringing. In his hung-over state it's inane crazy-frog ring-tone felt like a jackhammer to his skull. As he sat there waiting in sorrow, the nights events once more played themselves in his head. He had been blind drunk when John's cell-phone had gone off and he had made his usual crack about it being too damned phallic to be owned by a straight boy.

This time, in some sort of woozy attempt at illustrating his point, he had snatched it from John and proceeded to deep throat it. After all, he'd done it often enough with the real thing, hadn't he? Of course, the real thing is usually firmly attached to a body. This wasn't and he suddenly discovered it had passed the point of no return and he was forced to swallow it.

And so here he was, waiting to see the doctor while his stomach kept ringing like a crazy frog.

Beddy Time

Six AM. Definitely time to get to sleep. I'll see y'all on the flipside!

Not out of the Woods.

The financial mess involving the Government is not over yet. Not by a bunch. It seems that clearing the first set of hoops has just given us the opportunity to jump through a bunch more. It was supposed to be over today.

I appear to be lying at the bottom of a very deep, dark hole. That seems a familiar concept. What does it remind me of? Ah, I remember. Life.
-- Marvin the Paranoid Android.

Happy Happy Joy Joy.

It seems that scientists have just developed a strain of always-happy mice. This may be a boon to researchers working to defeat chronic depression, but one has to be cautious when messing around with the emotional centers of the brain. Far more of our thinking is emotional than most folks realize.

One of my good friends was on Prozac the first time I met her. I didn't know it at the time. All I knew was that her permanent perkiness and cheerfulness really creeped me out. We never became good friends until she was off the drug and had far more normal emotional responses.

I'm not against this kind of research, understand. Its absolutely necessary that we understand the human emotional system and how to tweak it. I'm just very leery of jumping on the first permanent treatment that shows up, and this result could lead to such a treatment.

Space-Ship Batteries?

I was doing some research on batteries, and I discovered that Battery Bob really does carry EVERY conceivable kind!

The Smoking Gun.

Frankly, I've always been highly skeptical of the concept of Dark Matter. Its always seemed far more likely to me that some sort of modification to gravity theory would explain it. Considering we know that current gravitational theory is almost certainly wrong (as its incompatible with quantum mechanics), the idea that it might need to be changed has never seemed to be a problem.

Now however, some very hard-to-dispute evidence has arisen that seems to conclusively indicate that dark matter is, indeed, very real. A very accessible description of the evidence and its interpretation can be found here.