its been tough

I've had a tough two weeks. I feel pretty bleak, but I saw some alpacas last weekend and that made me feel good. I love alpacas. They are such cute animals and so observant. I've never seen a more observant animal. We went to an alpaca farm and met an alpaca named Moses. He was super cute, but he kind of scared of me when he tried to jump up like a dog. When I am older, I am going to raise alpacas.

Taxes

I spent 2 hours today on the federal and state income tax- all for $4. I found the process to be more difficult this year. All the different tax credits were confusing and convoluted. I hope that next year there will be less tax credits. I know most people might be befuddled by this, but I don't think tax credits are that helpful towards the poor and lower middle class. It is so time consuming and confusing. I believe most people will simply balk at the process- and I did it electronically. I can only imagine someone trying to file by paper-it must be even more difficult. At least TaxAct kind of explain what each segment is. Unless you had a professional tax filler, most people probably don't even know what each tax credit is and how to apply it and most people will not pay for a professional because they don't have the money.

I think it will be more simple if tax cuts are applied at the time of purchase. I understand why the government is doing it on tax forms instead- I think they are relying on people's laziness and confusion- that way, they get to keep most of the money and say that they provided many tax cuts. I think the Republican party is made of a group of very smart, very sadistic people who take advantage of people's ignorance. Almost every Republican is in love with the Regan era- they talk about his tax cuts and small government when that wasn't that at all. Those tax cuts? Statistics show that the disparity between the rich and the poor have increased since those tax cuts...and even more so during the Bush administration. And small government? What small government...it was only small in the business and financial sector. Now all the grass roots movement is all about small government, they distrust government...when all this distrust is rooted in the Republican party.

Chat Roulette

Chat Roulette is nuts. I'll probably be addicted to this site for the next six months (What else are you going to do in Connecticut?). Chat Roulette is a website that pairs you with a random stranger via video chat.

The first person I saw was a naked girl and her vagina. There were naked boys, naked men, and lots of cats. Some of the messages we received were: "get naked," "sex," "pussy." It wasn't long before I started yelling pussy at every person I was connected to. Some of my welcome comments included, "hey, you're not naked."

I was naive. And so were the students from Paraguay. About my sixth try, I met a group of Paraguayans who showed me a puppy and lots of finger pointing. In exchange, I showed them a rubix cube- it was the closest thing next to my computer. After trying to speak some broken Spanish, we said goodbye. I can only imagine what they saw after me. Out of the fifty something strangers I connected to, only a handful were interested in things not associated with sex. I don't think I'll be able to erase the image of that really old guy sitting quietly in front of the camera, naked. I don't think Chat Roulette is for normal conversations, I couldn't do it. When I met someone I could talk to, it got boring and awkward after the initial hello. Greg and I met some nice guys from New Orleans. When we asked them how it was, they said it was good, "except for Katrina." We met another guy from Lyon and another guy from Boston. There were a lot of dudes on Chat Roulette.

If Chat Roulette is the only kind of connection we may hope to have in the future, I am scared. It's like that movie Gamer I saw the other day (I watched it because I was bored. That's all I do here. Go to work and watch movies. I hope that my life will return to relevancy). On second thought, I will not return to Chat Roulette. The images and the insanity of its users are wayyyyy too much.