I’ve turned into a big fan of Trader Joe’s over the last couple weeks. Sure, Trader Joe’s stores don’t have EVERYTHING I need in a grocery store. But I’ve found that a lot of their products are high in quality, and in many cases, better than what’s available from my usual grocer (Von’s). Plus, the hippies who run the place are total LOLZ. Check out this cartoon from the side of a Trader Joe’s bag:

And then there’s this cartoon from a recent Trader Joe’s flyer:

“Stuffed salmon!” Silly hippies.

(Images also available through Flickr.)

Tags: Flickr, food, Trader Joe's
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(Photo also available through Flickr.)

Tags: Flickr, food
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It was gray and rainy on Wednesday. But that didn’t stop me from firing up my recently recovered propane grill and cookin’ some burgers.

See the full photo set here.

Tags: Flickr, food, rain
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I filed my household taxes earlier this week. And the results of this year’s filing have really left me scratching my head. For the first time ever, Jen and I owe enough money ($229.00 on the federal return) to make me understand why people are annoyed by taxes. In the past, we’ve always come out even or ahead. I’m not sure exactly what’s caused us to go negative this year. I ran our tax documents through two different tax-preparation sites  taxact.com and freetaxusa.com), and I was able to determine that, based on the way taxact.com processes things, that something from Jen’s W-2 was sending us into the red. I’m guessing it’s got something to do with the way her W-4 form from work has been set up. But I have no way to know for sure, especially considering that she didn’t change anything on the W-4 between this year and last. I guess we could always have things evaluated by a “tax professional,” but as I stated above, both taxact.com and freetaxusa.com came to the same conclusion. Unless BOTH sites are wrong, it seems like paying someone to prepare the taxes would be a waste of money. I even went through the itemized deductions list on taxact.com just to see if there was any way to bring the number down, but that didn’t change anything.

Overall, I’m more frustrated with the lack of clarity in the filing process than with the fact that we owe money. Of course I’d love to not have to pay. Fortunately, we have the money to cover it. Regardless, the whole thing leaves me wondering if it’s math or some kind of black voodoo magic behind all of this tax business. I doubt I’ll ever know.

Tags: money
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Read a short article about the cool software app Grazr that features input from me! For more information on how I’m using Grazr, take a look at this entry.

Tags: Grazr
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I stopped into Gus’s Deli last Saturday for a sandwich. I filled out my sandwich card:

All things considered, I think I wrote my name fairly clearly. I mean, it’s not like you can be all super-neat with those weird grease-pen things they make you use. Anyway, when the girl from the deli brought my sandwich out to the dining area, she began calling out, “Shawna? Shane? Shawna… or maybe it’s ‘Shawn?’” I raised my hand to indicate ownership of the sandwich. She handed me the sandwich, wrapped in butcher’s paper, with the card taped to its front. I looked it over, just to ensure that it was indeed mine, and not perhaps a sandwich belonging to Shawna or Shane. I apologized for my apparent inability to write my own name, and she went off on her merry sandwich-making way.

But, seriously. Is it that bad?

Tags: California, Flickr, food, Gus's Deli, San Luis Obispo
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I dislike Sundays. Specifically, Sunday evenings. I get off of work at 8PM, and it doesn’t leave me with much free time for anything, because I have to be to work at 11AM on Monday morning. Now, I know what you’re thinking; “Shawno, you lazy bastard. You have 15 hours between those two work shifts. What’s the problem?” Well, I’ll use tonight to demonstrate my point.

As you should’ve read in the first paragraph, my Sunday evening work shift ended at 8PM. Immediately after that, I began cooking dinner, and by the time dinner was made and consumed, it was certainly approaching 10PM. Of course, Jen finished off the leftover wine from Valentine’s Day with dinner, and that put her in a chatty mood, so we spent the next hour or so sitting on the couch, talking. And that’s just fine. But by then, it was 11PM, and I really needed to get the dishes washed. So I washed the dishes. And now I’m typing this. It’s just after midnight. In order to get a decent night’s rest and still get a walk in before work tomorrow (today!) I’ll need to be in bed around 1AM. That gives me not quite an hour of true “free time,” and I don’t appreciate that one bit.

Which means I really should stop writing this and go do something less productive for awhile. I think I’ll watch the last of last week’s “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” episodes, and if I’m lucky, I’ll squeeze some reading in right before I go to bed.

Anyway, Sundays suck.

Tags: life
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Yesterday evening, Jen told me about a notice she saw posted to YouTube. The bulletin stated that a vlogger, commonly known as “theboringdispatcher” had recently passed away. I was surprised to hear that, and decided to investigate. Turns out, according to this video, this video and this video, the news is indeed true.

I didn’t know Roger (the man behind theboringdispatcher videos) personally. I had only a few brief exchanges with him through the YouTube site. But I was a fan of his videos. I found him to be a kind of kindred spirit, as he was working third shift as a tow-truck dispatcher, and when I first discovered his videos, I was working third shift at the answering service (and occasionally had to dispatch a few tow trucks of my own). To me, the pinnacle of Roger’s creations was a video with the simple title of “breakfast.” Unfortunately, the video is no longer available. But in the video, Roger shared his breakfast order with us, as he sat at a local diner, and then closed the video out with sped-up footage of himself, eating, with Nirvana’s “Pennyroyal Tea” in the background. I know that’s a lousy description of the video. But something about it really hit me. It made me realize just how lonely this guy was in his life, and well, that’s something I could relate to. I posted my first YouTube video as a reply to Roger’s “breakfast” video. He was even kind enough to leave a comment to my video: “breakfast burrito for the win.”

Even though he had a reputation for leading a less-than-healthy lifestyle, it was actually a combination of meningitis and pneumonia that took down The Dispatcher. In the months preceding his death, he had stopped participating in video sites like YouTube. Not because he was drawing inward, due to the aforementioned loneliness. But because he was dating and actually getting a life outside of the Internet. His friends and family report that, overall, he was happy in love and life at the time of his death. I can’t think of any better way to go.

As an aside, I’m a bit surprised at myself at how much this news has affected me. As I stated above, I had no “real life” connection to Roger. But his death truly saddens me, just the same as if anyone else I knew had passed away. I guess this whole Internet thing isn’t as cold and mechanical as we all thought. Anyway, thanks for being a cool and inspiring guy, ‘Spatch. You’ll definitely be missed.

Tags: life, theboringdispatcher, YouTube
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