I’ve found that my anal retentiveness comes in handy at least once a year — tax time. The W-2s are flooding into Casa de la Buggie and I find myself busily preparing returns for my family and friends. I’m cheaper than H&R Block and they know I’ll do an A+ perfect return because they know I know that if I fuck up they’ll burn me alive.

The number one question I keep getting is along the lines of:

“So, uh, like, what’s the deal with the free money from the government?”

I get tired of reciting the same Stimulation Package blurb over and over. So, I’d like to share a couple handy places on the IRS website that gives you the lowdown dirt.

Here is a page with some brief info/resources on various aspects of the Stimulus Payments.

Here is a pretty comprehensive list of Stimulus Payments FAQ’s.

Here is an article about stupid fucking scammers who are using this sa-bang to screw people over…read it and prepare yourself for the onslaught of spam and phony calls you might be getting.

This is all fantastic reading right before bed — enjoy!

Ok people listen up! Rachel over at Oh My God Y’all has a project going on that I think is fan-friggen-tastic! She and her husband are going to be collecting Teddy Bears and on Christmas day will be taking them to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital for all the sick kids. They hope to have at least 300 bears in tow so they need a little help from all of us because, well hell, that’s a lot of teddy bears! Click on the teddy bear picture below to learn more about what’s going on and how you can help:

They are also accepting gently used bears/stuffed animals (not ones that are all fucked up, stained or shabby looking). It may be a good idea to wash them first before sending them if they aren’t brand new (especially if you’re a smoker and the smell is in the bears). I have an easy-peasy way to wash stuffed animals so they don’t get trashed in the machine:

Bug’s Easy-Peasy Way to Wash Stuffed Animals

You’ll Need:
- An old clean Pillowcase (it may get messed up so don’t use a good one)
- Stuffed Animal(s)
-A washing machine

Place the stuffed animal inside the pillowcase and knot off the open end of the case. Toss the pillowcase into the washer and turn your settings to delicate cycle, add soap. Being in the pillowcase during the wash cycle will help preserve the animals shape etc. I wash mine with warm water and do a double rinse to make sure all the soap is out.

Make sure if you’re washing multiple stuffies at once to separate them like you do clothes (pinks and reds don’t mix with whites and lights. darks are separate, etc.) Most of the time there will be some dye that will come out of the bears that are pink, orange or red. I usually do mine one at a time just to avoid any color bleeding fuckups.

Once the wash and rinse is done you can usually toss the whole thing (stuffies still in the knotted case) into the dryer and set it on medium to low heat to dry add in a dryer sheet. Do not ever use the highest heat setting. Don’t put stuffed animals with vinyl or soft plastic parts into the dryer as they will most likely melt and fuck up your dryer. If you don’t have a dryer just wring them out and set them on a towel in a sunny spot for a couple days to air dry. If their fur comes out matted use a soft brush to make them pretty and fluffy again.

Use common sense when washing the stuffed animals. If you’re not sure what you’re doing then either ask someone (like me) or don’t do it at all. I’m not responsible for you fucking up your shit.

Tonight I learned a valuable lesson people. Google always has the answer. Always. It can dig your ass out of a real bind in a hurry. Love your Google, in fact go there and kiss the screen it’s on right now.

The Hotness drives a 2000 Mercedes C230 Kompressor and his battery finally ate shit and died this evening. So his daughter and I went to the auto parts store to get another one. On my way out of the garage with the old battery in hand I closed the trunk (which is where the battery lives). Little did I know that I would regret closing that damn trunk more than anything in the world.

On returning from the store with the new battery in tow we found out that the trunk will not open (with either the Key F.O.B., interior switch or the hard key in the lock of the trunk) if the battery is not present in the car. No battery=No Open. Period.

This is a major “Oh fuck.” moment for me because I was the dumbass who shut the trunk.

In my defense:

1. I’m a girl.
2. I have never owned anything even close to a Mercedes nor anything newer than 1989 which had computery/electronicy stuff in it.
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Let’s face it, at one point or another you’ve gone into a store like Best Buy or even Wal-Mart shopping for electronics of some sort. You get there and are faced with a wall of choices and then it hits you– you have no fucking idea what you’re looking at. All you know is you want to buy a *insert item here* and you don’t want a piece of crap.

So you end up tracking down whatever kid that works there and try to understand the electro-gibberish that comes spewing out of their mouth when you ask for help. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do a little pre-search (my made up word for pre shopping research) so when you go in you have a bit of a background on what you’re looking at and a mental list of things to look for?

I found a site to help do just that! Electronics Newbie is a neat little site that offers semi-in-depth overviews on all sorts of electronics. From Digital Cameras, Video Games, Speaker Systems and everything in between they give you run downs of what’s good to know when buying your new toy. They also offer reviews on many types of each product they talk about. Go check ‘em out:

http://electronics.newbie.org

The Hotness and I are looking to buy a PDA to keep him organized so I’m totally hitting up their section on Handheld PDAs before we hit the stores. The Newbie site also has sections for Computers and even a section for the Internet in case you need a crash course on those fields as well

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Don’t forget about my lovely renter Jane, she’d love to have you over for a visit so clickity click wouldja?

Most of us have cell phones; most of us keep them with us all day every day. Many of you may have heard about the “I.C.E.” campaign that originated in England and picked up great popularity after the London bombings. It made its way over to America as well, and was featured in the likes of USA Today and The Washington Post. For those of you who don’t know about this here’s the quick run-down:

In case of emergency or ICE is a campaign to encourage people to put an emergency contact name in their mobile phones. In developed countries some 80% or more of people carry a mobile phone, and the police or paramedics often use them to identify victims at road traffic accidents or other incidents. The idea of ICE is that everyone should put an emergency contact name and number into their phone under the headword “ICE”. This would give the emergency services personnel a standard place to look. -Source

Personally I like this idea a lot and The Hotness and I both have our I.C.E. numbers programmed into our phones. There are some people whose phonebooks are PIN protected, so this post isn’t really for you I guess. But for the rest of ya’s listen up because this is a friendly reminder Get your phone(s) and take care of business, it’ll only take a couple of minutes (depending on how complicated your phone is) and it could help you out in your time of greatest need.

There are emails going around that talk of the I.C.E. idea being a method of spreading viruses or incurring large call fees. None of that is true, both myths are de-bunked here.

Obviously having I.C.E. in your phone isn’t a guarantee (batteries die and phones sometimes get lost in chaos) but along with having your emergency contacts written on a card in your wallet or purse it sure gives you a little extra peace of mind and can help folks help you a little quicker.

If you’d like to get a neat little I.C.E. support button for your website or blog like the one above just click here.