mouse_rants

really unusual sentiment, right? and i'm starting to hate turbotax.

actually, i like turbotax. it does make things easier, it helps you deal with all the incomprehensible forms, it comes out all nice and neat. what i hate is that they keep trying to get more cash out of you. now, most of this is not too bad - you hit the "no thanks" button and move on. until you get to the biter bit - efiling. and turbotax wants another $19.95 to do that.

now, i've already paid for turbotax, plus the extra bit for the state. and i'm not about to shell out an extra 20 to do something the irs would prefer me to do. especially since turbotax says i can't efile the state form, because it needs an attachment (no doubt a check for the money i owe them). no sweat - i have a week, i output the files as pdf files and email them to myself.

now, i should explain my computer situation. l have a pretty new laptop with a wireless card which connects to a cable modem. i did the turbotax thing on that, because it's a faster computer and a faster connection. but it isn't connected to the printer, which is connected to an older desktop computer, which only has a ddialup connection. (yes, dear brother, i know it is possible to connect this to the wireless connection. i know that it's easy, and that i can do it. or i could, if the stupid modem program didn't keep crashing when i try to install it.)

so anyway - i email the files to myself, then open the email on the desktop to print the forms. except i keep getting some "server cannot open files" message. i can _see_ the files - i just can't print them.

but i am a clever person, and i have a data stick. i can transfer the files that way.

if i can find the data stick.

i used to keep it on the desktop monitor stand, but it turns out to be exactly the size thing that my dear fred likes to pick up and play with. so i stashed it somewhere. somewhere nice and safe, i'm sure of it.

follows half an hour of frenzied searching. now , the thing about frantic activity is that my dear sweet kittens always want to help in these situations, bless their fuzzy little hearts. except of course we can't all search the same places, so they search places around me. and a surprising number of things that i keep in silly places like on the bookshelves and on top of the armoire have this tendency to fall off, when searched by kittens. so we have to add cleanup time to search time.

(of course, you all know that mousie wuv wuv WUVS her kit-kits. and her wasn't angry at all when she threw them out of the house - she just...um...wanted them to enjoy thie sunshine! yeah, that's it.)

(oh, that stuff i said? that was....that was a blessing. well, of course it was. i would _never_ take the name of the lord in vain like that.)

finally found the data stick (which had inexplicably migrated into the catchall basket), started printing, ran out of paper (when did you start having to submit an entire _book_ for a tax return?) - reloaded, printer decided it wasn't happy and spit out about 20 pages of gibberish before i noticed....*sigh*. but i think i've got it all now. except i just remembered i need to dig out the w2's again to attach them to the files -even though the irs _has_ its own copy of all of that *SIGH*

and in case any of you were worried about the kittens, this entry has taken about an hour, because fred has been walking over the computer and pushing his head under my hand for pets, so i know he still loves me.

but he's really a sweet boy. he even helped me print out my return.