Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Today is Give-to-the-Max Day! Make a donation to a cause, a charity, or a donation-funded thing you use or enjoy. Don't forget all the "free" things that really aren't free at all. Maybe you use open-source software, or listen to a podcast, or really like a firefox extension, or listen to public radio. They really need your donations, too, and not all of them are as pushy about it as public radio.

I will not be giving today because that's generally a credit card activity, and I will be without a credit card for the next week, since a stranger used it to buy a one-way flight out of Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago and I just got the credit card statement. No other odd charges. They must have really needed to get out! So the card is canceled and I am awaiting a new one.

So, I e-filed taxes with HR Block. Then I got an email saying there was a problem with my return--name and birthday weren't matching up. I curse HR Block's software, sure that they screwed it up, but I call the SS administration to check. (By the way, contacting the SS at 8a.m. on Tuesday morning was super-fast. I wasn't really on hold at all. Awesome.)

Turns out that when I got married and changed my name, lo those many years ago, they also changed my birthdate. Oopsies! The SS administration thinks I'm 10 days younger than I used to be. And because I've been filing paper returns for the last nine years, I was never notified that there was an inconsistency.

This is funny except that now I have to fix it before I can file my taxes. Or I can file my taxes with the wrong birthdate, I guess. I'm not even sure where my birth certificate *is*! If I'm lucky, they'll accept a passport.

...

On a mostly unrelated note, I'm listening to this radiolab podcast about the impostor phenomenon, and it's weird and strange and sort of links to the social security thing, and I think there may be a story in there somewhere.

Tomorrow, an actual post. Until then, I give you--a purple kohlrabi. They are mighty strange-looking vegetables.

The most fractal vegetable you'll ever see. Whenever I get this out to cook, I end up staring at it in awe for a while first.

( The email )

Warning signs:
1. Vicesteed is a novel, not a short story.
2. There's no mention of an advance or payment.
3. I am published--and my publications are listed on my Critters bio.
4. This guy's an unpublished editor and an unpublished writer, too?
5. Sounds like there's not an actual publishing deal--I'm guessing this is a POD-type solicitation.
6. Editors aren't supposed to contact people through Critters.
7. The phrasing and grammar are just a bit off.

On the other hand, this might be a good-faith effort by this guy--but it's not exactly a paid-publication offer. And unpaid publication is easy--just put something on your website. It counts, and you've lost rights. I suppose I'll let Critters know about this.

No, I'm not going to sign over Vicesteed for profit-sharing alone, esp. in a deal like this.

Saw this in a narrow area between two garages, just off the alleyway. Hmm. Looks like we may have a budding serial killer in the neighborhood (this goes a bit behind the usual "popping the heads off dolls" that kids do). At least they won't be active for another ten or twenty years, going by statistics, and we don't have any outside pets.

Really, the title says it all.

( Except that there's another deader under the cut. )