My Tax Dollars At Work

I know, I know – even though resolution number three was a solemn vow that my blog wouldn’t end up on the same big country farm* as Mr. Squeakers, Captain Furball and Fido’s one through seven, it’s been a while since I posted anything aside from EXCITING! NEWS! UPDATES! and demands for healthy but fair compensation from Mr. Mini Cooper. Who has, by the way, yet to respond.

The reason for the radio silence? Taxes. And since everyone has to pay them aside from Al Capone and the chronically unemployed – there’s a thinner line between those two than you might think, especially when you consider that Capone hasn’t worked in six decades – I figure that no one wants to log on and read about my harrowing experiences with my 1040-EZ. Or about how my selective amnesia led to a minor/devastating banking error. Or about how I’ve woken up in a cold sweat every night this week, always from the same nightmare about a guy wearing stilts and an Uncle Sam outfit beating the living tar out of me while a beaver using a Canadian flag as a cape looks on and shakes his head sadly. Luckily, thanks to confirmation I just received from my bank, you’ll never have to read about all that stuff! That’s right – my tax dollars are now hard at work, hopefully funding Operation: Shock and Awesome (artist’s depiction above). Tenacious, those Nazis.

My civic fiscal duty now out of the way, I’m free to bring you the bullet point headlines of all that’s new and exciting: GRINDHOUSE (awesome), AppleTV (shiny), MUMMY (going), Vancouver (soon), THE FUTURE IS CALLING (best), Getty (beautiful), MEET THE ROBINSONS (familiar…), Easter (adorable), MEATBALLS (incredible) and last but not least, Muse (rockin’). And there you have it.

*Although I never had any pets make the one-way trip to said country estate – most likely because pets were strictly verboeten after my family suffered a particularly harrowing weekend with a classroom hamster – I always pictured this farm being a lot like the dalmation plantation in 101 DALMATIONS. Only with less dalmations and more…say…hamsters missing their tails (apologies, Sergeant Whiskers). On a side note, a friend of mine from film school grew up on a farm that bred beagles. And while I couldn’t think of a name for his place as rhyme friendly as “Dalmation Plantation”, I think that “B & Beagle” is pretty darn adorable. Just think – you could spend the night there, then wake up to find a beagle’s brought you a bagel. And then you smile, and he smiles, and you both know your lives will never be the same.