April 15, 2002

Three things: First, if you're a U.S. citizen, you need to file your tax return today, or you need to file for an extension. Second, if you're thinking you can take a tax credit for being descended from a black slave, you've been misled, but at one point you could have gotten away with it. You might just find this article at CNN.com hilariously ironic in context of my slave reparation rant on the 29th. Long story short: some black folks were claiming reparations on their tax returns, and getting checks from the IRS. The average check size was $43,000, and some $30 million was paid out before the IRS reprogrammed the computer to catch these things (and it caught another $16 million in attempts). I'd say that between the INS and the IRS, this country is in dangerously stupid hands. Granted, it's institutional stupidity, powered by dumb bureaucracy, but it's stupidity nonetheless. Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? (Let's also ignore the fact that I'm talking about "spades" and "black folks" in the same paragraph. Please?)

I promised you a third thing. I guess I'll just ramble on about the latest news from the happy land where Schlock is born and brought to the web. Page-views and readership numbers are way up, thanks largely to Greg Dean, who plugged me at the beginning of the month. This makes me happy. The buffer is not as far ahead as it needs to be (21 days, as of this writing), mostly because in the middle of the week last week I hurt my neck and back at the gym, and now I can't spend as much time at the drawing table as I'd like. Fortunately, it feels like it's getting better. Unfortunately, it needs to get better FAST, because I've got two weeks of travel scheduled in May, and unless I get the buffer out to May 30th before April 30th, we're gonna have a hiatus.

Mostly this means I'm gonna get the buffer out to May 30th one way or another. I'd love to have it there ALREADY, though, and just couldn't pull it off this weekend. Oh well.

The best news from the schlock-front is that I'll be getting a hefty tax refund this year. After all, Schlock Mercenary is a business, and I pay an accountant to make sure that my tax returns indicate all the business stuff I do. To be sure, all that's REALLY happening is I'm getting some of my own money back, but hey, money is money, right?