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MichaelDavidCrawford (2339)
mdcrawford@gmail.com
http://guacamoleroad.com/
I can slice, dice, julienne and puree.
Journal of MichaelDavidCrawford (2339)
I could open a business checking account but that means I need business licenses with both the city and state. But my first paycheck is almost gone.
What did I spend it on? Might as well be hookers and blow, I'd have as much to show for it. Actually I spent most of it on restaurant meals. I'm fortunate that I spent some on items of lasting value, like my spiffy new Mac Mini, and some new clothes. Otherwise I would have spent the whole thing at restaurants.
Fortunately a close friend is willing to lend me the money for the business licenses. I will apply online later tonight. This friend of mine is well aware of my fondness for hookers and blow, but frankly I'm shocked.
I used to enjoy cooking at home. It's my depression that discourages it.
I could take sandwiches for lunch but every morning I feel too wiped to make my sandwich. Starting tonight I'm going to make my sandwiches the night before.
Rice and Beans. I like rice and beans, but my bean pot is dirty. I have two kitchen sinks. The left-hand one I actually use, and do a good job of keeping it empty. My bean pot is in the right-hand sink, and has been there for months, unwashed.
There is no excuse. Depression makes me lazy but even so I must not give into it. Among the best ways to overcome depression is to act as if one is not depressed. If I were to wash that damn bean pot I would be rewarded with wholesome nutritious hot meals each evening.
I don't really have any plans for this second paycheck. But that means I must be extra careful or I will spend the lot of it at the taqueria down the street.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 15 2017, @03:40AM (6 children)
$19.00 for the state registration application
$125.00 City of Vancouver business license
$60.00 One city of Vancouver employee - they tax my fucking headcount!
$5.00 to register the trade name "Soggy Wizards"
$5.23 credit card processing fee
Unfortunately I have to wait ten days to get my business number. I need that to open a business checking account. I think the city will be snailing me a hardcopy license, that I will proudly display on my bulletin board.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:03AM (2 children)
I'm sure lots more taxes will be in order. Make sure to put a chunk of that money away for them.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:15PM (1 child)
The first deposit is due April 15. I'm planning to pay it out of this second paycheck, but not if I spend it all on hookers and blow
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday March 15 2017, @08:44PM
You may be able to pay some of the taxes with hookers and blow, but I think you need to arrange a special deal for it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 15 2017, @12:50PM (2 children)
Canadians... what can I say.
In the Trumpenreich its different and its mildly interesting to compare. My state is business un-friendly by USA standards and the state costs to register a SMLLC are maybe $200 but yearly renewals are like $25. You can pay an attorney $100 to make the pain disappear or spend about 5 hours filing it yourself using the most user unfriendly web site I've ever seen in my entire life. My city doesn't license businesses unless you're retail or food inspection related which is nice, no general public and no employees means no license and also means virtually all zoning codes are OK. My local city is actually pretty caught up with the times and hopefully its not doc dropping that part of the definition of the zoning code for my house is explicitly permitting professional home offices such as accounting ... etc ... and software development, so I'm like wow, Big Brother has a shout out directly to me, I'll be sure to tell Alexa thanks bro. Speaking of no employees I'm a single member LLC so I get limited liability and a few other features and some interesting tax deductions while my tax situation looks like sole proprietor which is cheap and easy. There is no paperwork blizzard like being incorporated causes. My LLC has a no fee no min balance credit union checking account limited to only like 1000 transactions a month or something (LOL like 10 is a busy month for me). I can only deposit checks made out to the LLC in the business account and I can only deposit checks made out to me personally in my personal account, but I can transfer money quite easily. Its "normal-ish" in the USA not to state sales tax custom software development which is nice but the bastards tax virtually everything else as a service (including maint contracts). So in addition to registering the LLC I get to register with the state DOR and every county and every zip code in some cases has a slightly different tax rate which I assure you is hilarious. My medical insurance situation is unusually complex and not being a corporation I am insured as a person not as an employee which is both complicated and expensive. Being the USA I of course have three insurance companies, and I'm lucky to only have two, one does medical and nothing else (well dental, etc) and the other does house, car, and commercial general liability (like trip and fall on my laptop power cable at a client site and sue me for $1M and I'll be pissed but I won't be bankrupt) and naturally my life insurance is via my wife's church (long story). The feds are remarkably lenient as mentioned a LLC is taxed like a sole proprietor and its just one one schedule in my extremely complicated income tax (I also invest and god help me I have had pages of transactions some years). I usually make enough in investment income to owe big brother, which is nice, and self employed get to pay "extra" taxes which is a long boring story. Businesses get to pay quarterly estimated income withholding payments. One nice thing about the USA is you can pay money to make problems go away, you can plunge your toilet all day if you have to or you can pay money to make issues simply evaporate and I tend a bit towards spending to make it go away, because its a stereotype in the USA of small businessmen bitching about spending 10 hours/month or whatever on paperwork and government tax bullshit and at my hourly rate that 10 hours would pay for many years of top of the line quickbooks online and turbo tax and all that crap. Also at least as of a couple years ago, turbotax was bitcoin-friendly or at least bitcoin-tolerant which was nice when I had some interesting capgains.
Ironically having been employed by others for a long time and working for myself the kind of PITA is totally different, and I don't think I could tolerate W-2 again for anything less than $250K but self employed is an entirely different type of PITA. Yet, weirdly its about a constant level of PITA and I'm not any more angry or relaxed than I was in the W-2 days. Due to ageism in the USA its a pipe dream to get W-2 employment anyway over age 40 or so. Its only a slight exaggeration that everyone under like 35 is W-2 and everyone over 35 is 1099 contractor land.
My favorite client involves EE tool integration for a very big telecom network provider so what I do is probably not the USA version of MDC's USB driver writing but my experience as a one dude company is probably very similar.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 15 2017, @01:36PM
Oh and I forgot to mention that in the USA, your situation of having only one client and working on site on their equipment and some supervision is like tossing raw meat at a starving wolf WRT an IRS audit to reclass to W-2 employee status and demand full back taxes along with a massive penalty. And I have to keep both the feds and state happy and apparently its "not unusual historically" for just the feds or just the state to win and if either win you're just as bankrupt as if both won so whatever.
So fieldnation is a godsend and I keep some very small time customers on the books just in case I or a client get audited I can show I'm a real contractor not an employee in contractors clothing. Look I worked on three separate contract clients last week and (clearly) no one supervises me or code reviews me (LOL) and I've never even been on site to some of those locations much less have them provide me with tools or even specify my tools. I don't like how some fieldnation jobs provide a standard employee-like uniform and tool kit list, that's clearly an IRS red flag risk they seem willing to take that I don't like, but its not company policy its merely some toxic "audit me" looking individual jobs. You don't tell a "real contractor" like a plumber which UPC code pipe wrench he must purchase from home depot and use on site but some fieldnation jobs have these generic tool kit lists of precisely which windows laptop to buy when what they really want is anything that's an RS232 terminal or anything that connects to wifi and has a web browser.
If you're ever bored and needing another client for a laugh go to fivver and do kids CS homework for them. Stupid kids. I'm not bothered morally or ethically because via the magic of grade inflation they're all getting A+ anyway no matter what their homework grade is, along with their special snowflake participation trophies, so my "help" isn't unfairly benefiting them over their fellow students, plus from my point of view its like doing project-euler for coding practice yet getting paid for it, and I like money. Also I can see how corporate types think new grads are idiots who know nothing because I've seen their homework, I've done their homework, and I think CS homework standards have gone downhill since the 80s/90s, maybe its affirmative action or maybe profit motive I donno but clearly your average CS student isn't terribly bright and making them even weaker by doing their homework for them in the long run makes a healthier marketplace for my very expensive cleanup services. Back in the old days we did "real homework" as we wrote our C++ assignments that somehow took like 20 pages of boilerplate BS to simulate a Fing elevator and could have been replaced by a very small perl script. If you want to know what the CS kids are learning in school today just go to fivver and do some of their homework for them. For example, kids these days do a lot of python. Fuck python. But I like the python money so aside from Fuck Python I don't really care. Its weird because its weak compared to Perl but it is easy enough to use. Anyway its just another income generating client as far as the IRS and state DoR are concerned. If you're bored you can go to fivver, pick a homework question, and google for it to find the question in their textbook on some file sharing site, and ask them if its question #4 on page whatever of "Java in 24 hours of heads up for idiots" and the reaction is always funny, although I'm probably going to get banned from fivver for trolling like that (because fivver makes money off being middlemen, they don't make money by enforcing college honor codes... although maybe they could? Maybe interesting business opportunity for them)
Obviously the situation is different in Canada, it would be interesting to hear how.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:47PM
The washington one was the first. It was originally a canadian army fort, that was turned over to the US Army when we established our common border.
To make matters even more confusing, I used to live in the Canadian one. The Canadian one is a far more interesting place to live. Vancouver Washington is dull, dull, dull. To have any fun I take the bus and light rail to portland, oregon.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 15 2017, @07:02AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:21PM
Depending on your paycheck, it might be cost-effective to get a housekeeper for a small number of hours per week.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday March 15 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
How much is a new bean pot+ingredients vs a restaurant meal?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:17PM (1 child)
it would be cheaper to buy a new pot for every pot of beans.
But one of the best ways to overcome depression is to act as if one is not depressed. Life has many little rewards, this allows one to reap them. But that means I must wash the pot.
I made a sandwich for lunch today, also brought and orange.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 15 2017, @09:15PM
Go... Go right NOW!
Use the force, clean the pot!!!
Frank? Why is this pot still dirty? Frank?
Betty!!!!
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 16 2017, @10:26AM (6 children)
Damnit, I forgot to put beans on to soak last night. Me and the roomie had great plans for a pot of beans loaded up with peppers and bacon and onions and garlic but they're proper fucked now. Those plans did include washing the crock pot incidentally as it's full of last week's stew.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday March 16 2017, @07:14PM (2 children)
Those plans did include washing the crock pot incidentally as it's full of last week's stew.
It's refreshing the way this journal entry shows how we all do this!
I've found it's crucial for me to have a good simple easy meal for work that doesn't require much cleanup, and to be in a regular routine of making sure it is ready and that the involved dishes are kept clean. Lately that meal for me has been Soylent or Schmilk, both of which are pretty good. I have to keep mixing pitchers and measuring cups and bottles clean, but it's not a very big task.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 16 2017, @07:52PM (1 child)
Well, in my defense, it's currently in the fridge and I had grand plans of eating it for lunch sometime during the past week. It just turns out hot pockets are quicker and easier.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday March 17 2017, @01:32AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by goodie on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:03PM (2 children)
Ok, since we are on the cooking theme here... I've always bought my beans in a can, mostly because I felt too lazy to do the pre-night soaking etc. My question is whether you really think it is worth it in terms of taste?
I'm not talking money I have seen how much cheaper they are. Plus I usually buy the organic kind so that the container, the beans and the sodium contents are lower but I wonder. I just like the convenience of tossing the contents in a pot and reheating for a few minutes... I'm lazy in my own way ;-)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:26AM
I've never found dried beans worth it specifically for taste but they're 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of canned ones usually. Perhaps I just don't know what to do with them.
For some variety (and way the hell shorter cooking time if you want to do it on the stove instead of the crockpot) try lentils. They make good soup, and if you have the right spices you can also make dhal. I'm very good at cooking on stupidly limited budgets--like, $20 a week or less limited--and lots of vegetarian legume dishes tend to come out from those constraints.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:08AM
-s.
That's the store near my apartment. I'd have broader selection were I to walk to Winco, but it is a half hour each way.
I like cooking. That I am depressed is made clear by the fact that I dread cooking. That's not like me.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:38PM (1 child)
1. Put water in it as dirty as it is
2. Let it go bad for 3-4 days... it helps if you're depressed, you’ll really needs a strong stench coming out of it to kick you out from the blue mood; by that time, most of the organic matter is already attacked by bacteria and enzymes and whatnot.
3. Take the pot and throw away the dirty water into the toilet. Flush the toilet and press that bathroom deodorant... twice, you'll need it. Take your time to recover if you blacked-out because of the stench; (if you don't recover, even better. No need to wash that damn'd pot ever, you hated it anyway and hate is such an exhausting feeling);
4. Go back into the kitchen, fill the pot with water and throw in a good spoon of caustic soda. Stir, do not shake. Eat a sandwich. Maybe more than one. If no longer hungry, there's no hurry to clean that pot today, you can continue with the next step tomorrow;
5. Throw the dirty lye solution in the pot in the sink and wait for it to drain. Rinse the pot copiously. Rinse once more. If anything is still stuck on the pot... high chances that is fused to it, thus any attempt to forcefully remove it will damage the pot as well; if this is the case, you may throw away the pot and buy another one.
Done. The above never failed me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:17AM
The above comment (even if it may offer an insight on the inner works of my cortex area responsible to laziness) is not meant to be taken as a practical advise - as such, I resent the Insightful mod.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0