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Renegade robots! (...and money)
Apr. 12th, 2008 05:39 pmOne of the little bonuses of my online reading life crops up when I'm reading RSS feeds through LJ. I get headlines from both Slashdot and The Onion, and once in a while, while scanning headlines, I'm surprised to find that a headline I assume from one source actually comes from the other. One such recent example was this one: Robot Rebellion Quelled in Iraq. I figured it was a fake humour news piece, but...well, it's not. Apparently some armed combat drones made moves like they were turning on their allied human counterparts, and they were pulled from service. *sigh* It's the Tiny House syndrome all over again; when I can no longer distinguish reality from parody, I just want to stand up and declare, "Stop the world; I want to get off." (Another recent example cropped up, actually, but I can forgive it for being an April Fool's Day prank. I got pointed to news of a new reality show in which a millionaire knocks up nine women and they all compete to see which child will be named his heir. "Nine women enter, eight bastards leave." It actually took me several seconds of rage against humanity before I realized it was a joke.) Uh, anyway...back to the robots. I actually recommend the source article at The Register as a neat read. It had me chuckling. I mean in that "laugh so you don't cry" kind of way. So it goes.
Anyway. Life is trudging onward here in my little world. The latest milestone I've achieved is getting my taxes finally finished up yesterday. Signed, sealed, delivered. And with a few days to spare, no less, which is kind of novel for me in my doing-my-own-taxes history, I think. Actually, this year marks a turning point for me for several reasons.
( A bunch of junk about taxes and finance in general )
In any case, when all is said and done, I like the way things are looking for the time being. In my personal financial life viewed as a business, I'm still deep in the red, in that my liabilites far outway my assets. My primary driving financial goal these days, besides day-to-day survival, is getting out of debt. So while I'm working on that, I cannot assume that I'm...you know...worth anything. ;) On the other hand, though, I'm actually generating positive cash flow for once, which I've found to be immensely comforting. Moreso than I expected, actually. :) The fact that this state of affairs basically balances on the head of a pin doesn't actually seem to get me down, which is encouraging. Investment strategies are all well and good to ponder sometimes, but really it all has to wait until I actually have spare money laying around to do something with. I'm actually digging the tax situation. To me, the extra paperwork and aggravation is worth having my tax money actually be useful to me rather than not. And thinking about bankroll management, especially the "unused" weirdness, has been a pretty neat exercise. Maybe for the first time, I feel motivated to learn more about financial matters. Crazy!
Anyway. Life is trudging onward here in my little world. The latest milestone I've achieved is getting my taxes finally finished up yesterday. Signed, sealed, delivered. And with a few days to spare, no less, which is kind of novel for me in my doing-my-own-taxes history, I think. Actually, this year marks a turning point for me for several reasons.
( A bunch of junk about taxes and finance in general )
In any case, when all is said and done, I like the way things are looking for the time being. In my personal financial life viewed as a business, I'm still deep in the red, in that my liabilites far outway my assets. My primary driving financial goal these days, besides day-to-day survival, is getting out of debt. So while I'm working on that, I cannot assume that I'm...you know...worth anything. ;) On the other hand, though, I'm actually generating positive cash flow for once, which I've found to be immensely comforting. Moreso than I expected, actually. :) The fact that this state of affairs basically balances on the head of a pin doesn't actually seem to get me down, which is encouraging. Investment strategies are all well and good to ponder sometimes, but really it all has to wait until I actually have spare money laying around to do something with. I'm actually digging the tax situation. To me, the extra paperwork and aggravation is worth having my tax money actually be useful to me rather than not. And thinking about bankroll management, especially the "unused" weirdness, has been a pretty neat exercise. Maybe for the first time, I feel motivated to learn more about financial matters. Crazy!