So, the smileys have infiltrated our governments...
So I just finished doing my taxes for this year, and since I worked in Arkansas in the summer, I had to fill out my first ever State Income Tax Return form. Sadly, Arkansas apparently hasn't moved into the 21st century with the rest of us (sorry, Frent, but this seems true based on what I've seen here) and so I am required to mail in physical forms for the State Tax Return. Ok, not that big of a deal since the forms I'm printing out (filled in online) are already fully filled out save for my signature. Still, being the paranoid sort that I am, I recheck all of the figures on there, and that's when I saw them. Form 2006 AR10000NR: Arkansas Individual Income Tax Return Nonresident and Part Year Resident, lines 53 and 54, a happy smiley face for line 53 (refund) and a sad frowning face for line 54 (tax due). I understand that these things are apparently popular, and even I have enjoyed a few (especially eternalhachi's highly creative smileys), but isn't putting them into official government records kind of taking the whole thing a bit too far? Still, I suppose it is refreshing to see some humor and liveliness in even the stuffiest of government functions, though some might argue we already see too much frivolous activity in the government.
(Interesting side note; my brother just called [again] for video game hints, and when I told him the above story he bust out laughing for several minutes; glad to see I'm not the only one who finds this to be ridiculous)
Even without the above having happened, things have been pretty insane for me lately. I finally resolved that speeding ticket, sort of; I called the courthouse and was informed I had 30 days to send in forms and fees to waive the ticket by taking a defensive driving course; however, the forms themselves told me I'd waited too long and would be fined an additional $165 and a $35 warrant processing fee for the warrant which would now be put out for my arrest. I can only hope the court house didn't steer me wrong, and everything will be ok, because I sure as hell don't have that kind of money just lying around (especially after having spent the $101 for the fees to inform the court that I intend to take defensive driving [in other words, that's not including the cost of actually taking the course, which will be virtually all of my remaining money]), nor can I afford to miss any time working and going to class right now dealing with that whole "warrant for my arrest" issue.
Speaking of not having time, classes are beginning to get truly insane as is their usual habit towards the ends of semesters. The first and only quantum midterm was Monday, and it TOTALLY destroyed me; on the plus side, from the sounds of it, everyone felt that way. It had only two problems, there weren't enough copies of the test for everyone to get one, the projection of the test was nearly impossible to read, and it had typos which only further complicated matters, especially since the professor wasn't there to clarify things... still, despite that I still am worried about this test. I failed to really answer one of the problems, and I can safely say I only got 75% of the remaining problem correct. My only real hope lies in the professor telling us (after having seen our tests) that no one really fails his course, and that even Cs are rare because of how he tends to grade (his idea of how to grade quantum physics is that basically no one will ever understand this stuff, so you shouldn't be punished for failing to understand it).
In lighter news, while things are certainly speeding up in my other classes, it looks like everything will be just fine there; I'll be shocked if I make less than a B in Japanese and Thermodynamics, and wouldn't be shocked at all if I made As in those classes. Pseudoscience I'm not quite so sure about, but I'm very confident I'll make at least a C; the homeworks are now moving into the truly bizarre, so it's hard to say for sure how this is going to end up. In fact, this weekend I have to fake an alien abduction, complete with pictures of the ship and the aliens; I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to handle this one, but I've only got until Wednesday to turn in the report and photos, so I'll probably figure something out (the ship I'm not worried about so much as the aliens themselves, and of course, actually taking the photos, since I have no camera, no money, no one to give me a hand with setting any of this up, no experience developing or even taking photos, etc, etc). Fortunately, that's only about a third of the assignment; the other two thirds revolve around making predictions about 2007 and inventing a system for fortune telling for customers (he even gave us "how to" guides for those parts [wish he'd done the same thing with the alien section; we didn't even go over photographing "aliens" in class, and only briefly went over photographing ships (well, the how of those, anyway; we certainly did a very thorough job of covering major instances of the latter of those in history)]), something which is simple in the extreme (as we have seen demonstrated time and again in history).
Anyway, that's enough rambling from me; time to work on those predictions and do some research into cheaply and effectively faking an alien encounter (and then actually going about doing so; this'll definitely be interesting one way or another...); hope everyone is doing well, and that anyone who wishes to talk with me will be able to do so despite my hectic schedule, and in any event, I'll see you all later!
(Interesting side note; my brother just called [again] for video game hints, and when I told him the above story he bust out laughing for several minutes; glad to see I'm not the only one who finds this to be ridiculous)
Even without the above having happened, things have been pretty insane for me lately. I finally resolved that speeding ticket, sort of; I called the courthouse and was informed I had 30 days to send in forms and fees to waive the ticket by taking a defensive driving course; however, the forms themselves told me I'd waited too long and would be fined an additional $165 and a $35 warrant processing fee for the warrant which would now be put out for my arrest. I can only hope the court house didn't steer me wrong, and everything will be ok, because I sure as hell don't have that kind of money just lying around (especially after having spent the $101 for the fees to inform the court that I intend to take defensive driving [in other words, that's not including the cost of actually taking the course, which will be virtually all of my remaining money]), nor can I afford to miss any time working and going to class right now dealing with that whole "warrant for my arrest" issue.
Speaking of not having time, classes are beginning to get truly insane as is their usual habit towards the ends of semesters. The first and only quantum midterm was Monday, and it TOTALLY destroyed me; on the plus side, from the sounds of it, everyone felt that way. It had only two problems, there weren't enough copies of the test for everyone to get one, the projection of the test was nearly impossible to read, and it had typos which only further complicated matters, especially since the professor wasn't there to clarify things... still, despite that I still am worried about this test. I failed to really answer one of the problems, and I can safely say I only got 75% of the remaining problem correct. My only real hope lies in the professor telling us (after having seen our tests) that no one really fails his course, and that even Cs are rare because of how he tends to grade (his idea of how to grade quantum physics is that basically no one will ever understand this stuff, so you shouldn't be punished for failing to understand it).
In lighter news, while things are certainly speeding up in my other classes, it looks like everything will be just fine there; I'll be shocked if I make less than a B in Japanese and Thermodynamics, and wouldn't be shocked at all if I made As in those classes. Pseudoscience I'm not quite so sure about, but I'm very confident I'll make at least a C; the homeworks are now moving into the truly bizarre, so it's hard to say for sure how this is going to end up. In fact, this weekend I have to fake an alien abduction, complete with pictures of the ship and the aliens; I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to handle this one, but I've only got until Wednesday to turn in the report and photos, so I'll probably figure something out (the ship I'm not worried about so much as the aliens themselves, and of course, actually taking the photos, since I have no camera, no money, no one to give me a hand with setting any of this up, no experience developing or even taking photos, etc, etc). Fortunately, that's only about a third of the assignment; the other two thirds revolve around making predictions about 2007 and inventing a system for fortune telling for customers (he even gave us "how to" guides for those parts [wish he'd done the same thing with the alien section; we didn't even go over photographing "aliens" in class, and only briefly went over photographing ships (well, the how of those, anyway; we certainly did a very thorough job of covering major instances of the latter of those in history)]), something which is simple in the extreme (as we have seen demonstrated time and again in history).
Anyway, that's enough rambling from me; time to work on those predictions and do some research into cheaply and effectively faking an alien encounter (and then actually going about doing so; this'll definitely be interesting one way or another...); hope everyone is doing well, and that anyone who wishes to talk with me will be able to do so despite my hectic schedule, and in any event, I'll see you all later!