Useless Conversation

[Tarami]

"How about jargon platitude paradigm and jargon?  That's not got much jargon in it."

Wait!  Is paradigm a platitude, a cliche or jargon?  I swear I've heard it used all three ways.

[Sky]

There's definitely a synergistic trend there that we can harness to maximize our utility.

Btw, I'm trademarking Green 2.0.

[Paelos]

People really really REALLY don't understand tax deadlines.

Them - "Did my stuff get filed?"
Me - "No, you got your documents to me on the 14th."
Them - "But that's the day before the deadline right? Why didn't you file it?"
Me -  

[Johny Cee]

People really really REALLY don't understand tax deadlines.

Them - "Did my stuff get filed?"
Me - "No, you got it to me your documents on the 14th."
Them - "But that's the day before the deadline right? Why didn't you file it?"
Me - 

No joke.  We have the added nonsense related to cross-border issues...  trying to get some of the information out of people to file the Foreign Related Party disclosures and Foreign Financial Account disclosures is like pulling teeth. 

For one of our larger clients, we always get the last K-1s (with multiple state K-1s) two days before the final deadline... so I'm trying to finalize an 8 state large corporate return and get it overnighted to Montreal in about an 18 hour period.

This year, another client sent our office a $300,000 check for their Federal tax the day before the fucking deadline instead of making the payment electronically like we told them to.  That was a fun conversation.

[Paelos]

It's just like anything else though, I supposed. People just seem to assume that we only do their business, so obviously we're just waiting around twiddling our thumbs wondering why oh why they haven't sent us anything yet.

It's not like we're slaving away on things that have been in for a week already. Nah.

[Selby]

People just seem to assume that we only do their business, so obviously we're just waiting around twiddling our thumbs wondering why oh why they haven't sent us anything yet.

As my dad was a CPA, the horror stories of all I experienced ruined my childhood around the March-April timeframe.  People really are stupid or clueless.  I get my taxes done in February.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Oh, fuck PMP and these damn formulas. 

[Ironwood]

Stick with it honey;  you can beat that shit.

[Sky]

So got up Saturday morning, all fired up to do a bunch of little jobs now that I finished off the last construction project for the summer. Notice the cat pointing under the table in the kitchen.

Return of the Citronella Ants.

Caught them just as they started, luckily. I was going to treat them in a staged extermination manner, but decided not to repeat the debacle of last autumn. Mike Holmes took me over, said "Unacceptable!" and I thought about how to deal with the problem, rather than the symptoms. Tore out the trim and paneling, caulked and spray-foamed the cracks and holes the ants were entering through. So glad I opened it up, nothing I could've done even with the trim removed would've taken care of the holes in the block in the middle of the wall, now they're sealed up nice.

Right now it is quiet, but I'm not convinced they're done finding ways to infiltrate. Give it a couple days and deal with what comes up and then insulate and drywall. This is why I urge people to learn to drywall, it makes tearing open a wall to deal with issues a somewhat trivial ordeal. Bonus is getting the r-value of 5/8" drywall and 3/4" rigid insulation and a nice finish look instead of the paneling and no insulation that was there before. My fiancee is past freaking out when she sees things like this, she's seen me do enough work that she trusts my judgment that it's the way to go with it. Pics to follow at some point.

I'm dealing with it much better this year, if a bit more...drastically.

[Minvaren]

Drywalling is fun.  Sanding, on the other hand...   

[Salamok]

Drywalling is fun.  Sanding, on the other hand...   

Sanding isn't bad it's the resulting dust that infiltrates your entire house that sucks.

[Nerf]

Drywalling is fun.  Sanding, on the other hand...   

Sanding isn't bad it's the resulting dust that infiltrates your entire house that sucks.

Throw a heavy texture on the wall with the rest of that box of drywall mud, don't have to sand and it still looks amazing.

[Sky]

Textured walls?   Do a good job from the start and every subsequent step is easier. Measure, cut and install the panels properly means less problems with mudding. Mud the joints properly and it means less sanding, my last project I hardly had to sand at all. Proper sanding makes for a good paint job and finished wall.

They found a pinhole in the caulking sunday, sealed that and we'll see what we get today. Tomorrow is the perfect conditions for infiltration, cold night followed by a hot day. So tomorrow is the big test. Still, a dozen ants on sunday beats the seething mass cloaking the entire wall on saturday. Sadly I didn't get a pic of that, I was in action mode and didn't think of documenting it.

[Cyrrex]

Two words:

Honeycrisps, muhfuckas!

[Sky]

I'm already halfway through the two pecks I bought less than a week ago.

[Merusk]

They still haven't shown up here. 

[Paelos]

A small plane managed to land on I85 here yesterday in the middle of rush hour. My thought was damn, I'm surprised there was any room on our bloated awful highways to pull that kind of nonsense. Amazingly nobody got hurt, but still.

[Sky]

Another wall torn out. Probably should've done that wall saturday. Also tore out some flower beds outside that wall, probably going to do some excavating.

And Time Warner is shitting the bed with 20% packet loss and an inability to fix it. Good times. Extremely glad I pre-loaded Civ 5 at this point.

[Yegolev]

A small plane managed to land on I85 here yesterday in the middle of rush hour. My thought was damn, I'm surprised there was any room on our bloated awful highways to pull that kind of nonsense. Amazingly nobody got hurt, but still.

Must have landed with the traffic stream.

Also, hooray for not commuting downtown anymore.

[Paelos]

Yeah I drive against commuter traffic, and I can only imagine a plane just careening over the top of my car to land on the interstate ahead of me. I'd need new seats.

[Furiously]

I now feel bad for my 2500 sq ft two bedroom house.

[Ingmar]

I have an idea, let's go live with our Oracle upgrade without testing our backup!

[Yegolev]

Testing is for pussies.

[Ironwood]

If they need tested, send them my way.

[Paelos]

Auditors are not there to get you fired. They are just looking at numbers. Don't react like they have the plague. Unless you are stealing from your company, then I suggest you leave town quickly.

This was your friendly CPA PSA of the day.

[Ironwood]

Stealing from your company is all part of the game.

[Ingmar]

Auditors are not there to get you fired. They are just looking at numbers. Don't react like they have the plague. Unless you are stealing from your company, then I suggest you leave town quickly.

This was your friendly CPA PSA of the day.

This sort of depends on your boss's failure tolerance. Sure, the auditor doesn't care if there was an error or oversight, but that doesn't change the possible consequences.

This auditor hate brought to you by SOX IT audit season.

[ghost]

Got my first negative review on Amazon for my first book today - a 1-star review. He had one good line in there - he said my characters were "spray on tans." That's some funny shit. 

I'm still planning on reading that soon.  It looks interesting.  I don't suppose you'd be willing to drum up an audiobook version for me, eh?   

[Soln]

publish that puppy on Kindle 4 free!

https://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin

edit: URL

[Paelos]

Auditors are not there to get you fired. They are just looking at numbers. Don't react like they have the plague. Unless you are stealing from your company, then I suggest you leave town quickly.

This was your friendly CPA PSA of the day.

This sort of depends on your boss's failure tolerance. Sure, the auditor doesn't care if there was an error or oversight, but that doesn't change the possible consequences.

This auditor hate brought to you by SOX IT audit season.

Feel free to hate on auditors doing internal control audits. Those people suck. Financial Audits? We're not really there to say who screwed up, just where we can actually get a fucking answer.

[Merusk]

You know the morning show isn't for you when, in the first five minutes; the host complains about how complicated the mac he's on is; feels he has to explain what a cursor is to the audience; then has a 10 minute discussion about passwords and how aggravating it is that you can't just use something simple (i.e. no cap no number) because "it's not like there's anything worthwhile on this machine anyway."

I'm definitely not Bob & Tom's target audience.

[Selby]

You know the morning show isn't for you when...

I stopped listening to morning radio years ago because of things like you just described.  And on another show the host was describing how gay people lead evil and sinful lives.  And another going on about fart jokes.

I don't know how people listen to the radio...

[HaemishM]

publish that puppy on Kindle 4 free!

https://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin

edit: URL

Um, it is. Well, not an audiobook. I could record an audiobook, but it would be ME doing the voice because I can't afford to hire talent and trust me, you do NOT want to hear hours of me droning on.

[Sky]

I'll do some voice work for you, Haemmy! Have the various f13 people with recording setups voice a few characters, it would be hilarious. Ironwood needs to be the protagonist, though.

[ghost]

Um, it is. Well, not an audiobook. I could record an audiobook, but it would be ME doing the voice because I can't afford to hire talent and trust me, you do NOT want to hear hours of me droning on.

It's got to be a ton better than the asshole that's reading the Uplift series that I'm listening to right now.  He plays the nose harmonica like a champ.  Someone needs to introduce these people to scissors.  

Drywalling is fun.  Sanding, on the other hand...   

Sanding isn't bad it's the resulting dust that infiltrates your entire house that sucks.

If you do this with a damp sponge it is a whole lot less messy.  Get a bucket and fill it with water.  Use the sponge to "sand" down the drywall, rinsing as necessary.  Obviously don't go crazy on the paper part of the gypsum board.