Middle Buffalo

I’ll be white-knuckling the next seven years hoping not to be audited.

I finally took the time to figure my taxes without claiming my 19 and 21 year olds. Having my 19 year old file independently gave her around a $3600 refund because I put all the tuition expense on her. She made around $10,000 working part time. My 21 year old had a pretty crappy year because his study abroad program was canceled in March for obvious reasons, but he still paid most of the cost by taking out loans. The school gave a small refund for housing, but not much. Then, he couldn’t get hired anywhere when he came back, and now he has his hardest labs, etc, so I don’t even think he’s really looking very hard for a job. He’s getting around $1800. My bill went up $1000 when I didn’t claim them, but the net gain is $4400. I told them just to give me the $500 I lost for not claiming each of them. I hope they get the stimulus checks too. Not getting anything for them last year is what a made me think it was a mistake to claim them at all once they are over 18.

Not sure I’ve ever seen someone with his ball handling skills have as many unforced turnovers as him. He just loses the handle once or twice every game. I agree, though, if he can develop any sort of shot, he’s going to be great.

I give platelets every month, and I can’t watch them put that needle in my arm. When I got this, I didn’t notice the needle being extra big, but I didn’t really pay attention. It’s just going into the upper arm muscle not poking around for an artery so I wasn’t concerned.

I got the J&J shot Friday. It feels a little thick going in to the arm, but pretty painless. I was a little tired yesterday. Took a 2 hour nap and was fine afterwards, so it may have just been a Saturday malaise. Today I feel fine. I can still feel a slight bump where the shot went in, and it feels a little like a bruise an inch or two around, but that’s it.

I have a feeling lots of people who are anti-mask are the same ones who ran out and bought up all the toilet paper.

Twitter users have already “clapped back.”

This might be what I do if I can’t figure it out. I think the mlb app on the tv wouldn’t recognize my username and password, and even when I reset it, it wouldn’t let me in.

I have a smart TV, and I have the app on it, but it wouldn’t work for me. I’ll figure it out this year I guess.

Is there a way to get it from my phone to my TV? I couldn’t figure it out last year, so I had to watch on my phone all year.

George leans a little heavy on “tell me a story I don’t know about______” as a leading conversation starter. I listened to the Eddie O interview. Pretty good. I always liked George on the Score, so I’ll listen to select shows (skipping blowhards like Greenberg and Wilbon).

This is where I’m at. My 21 and 19 year olds are clearly dependent college students, and we don’t get the stimulus for them because of their ages, and they can’t get it because they are dependents. It really doesn’t make sense. I only got a little bit for my 16 year old because of my wife any my income, but even a little bit helps. My take home check is literally a third of my gross. I know I should increase my withholding, but I can’t really afford it. My wife and I contribute the maximum to our 401k ($39k total plus another $11k to repay a loan we took from it when we bought our house). So, our AGI is reduced around $50k as a result. I can’t do much more to itemize to save on taxes. I played around with donations, and that didn’t do much. Our tax system really is crazy.

Thanks. I should just become a billionaire and not have to pay taxes.

Thanks. Looks like I have a few more hours of tax prep. I’ll have to figure out how to do it without having to totally redo mine.

Yeah. It’s going to be a pain, but that’s what I plan to do. At least I have time. It sucks that no matter what I do, it always seems like whatever changes they make to the tax codes negatively affect (or at least don’t help) me. I seem to fall into this weird pocket where no matter what I do, at the end of the year I always owe something. So annoying.

Working on my taxes today, and I have a few questions. I’ve done them myself intermittently using TurboTax through the years (using the prior year’s professionally prepared filings as a guide). I have a 21 and 19 year old college students, and because of my income (with my wife), I don’t qualify for any of the tuition related deductions/savings. Would it be better for my kids just to file independently and not claim them as dependents? I’m wondering if they would get a refund because of their college expenses and low earnings.

This Hawks season has been a nice surprise.

I agree. The Sox signings of Sale, Moncada, etc. makes sense because they are giving the player more money now in exchange for a little more team control. Not sure why the Padres would lock Tatis up as if he was a free agent. Why not wait a few years?

True. I misread your post. My mind switched it from Super Bowl winning to HOF when I looked it up.

Lions drafted Otto Graham and YA Tittle.

I’m not saying he wasn’t a great player prior to steroids (not that we really know when he started), but the common thing always said about Bonds is he was a sure fire HOF prior to steroids. Using Baseball Reference’s similarity scores by age’: Tom Brunansky (978.2) Jay Bruce (959.2) Jason Heyward (944.4) Jack Clark (948.2) Grady Sizemore (956.1) Bobby Bonds (938.2) Justin Upton (901.2) Shawn Green (915.5) Shawn Green (894.2) None on that list are HOF, but some really good players. Maybe his career ends up closer to Dale Murphy than Willie Mays. For a comparison, put in Mantle or Mays and see their similar players by age. All HOF from the starts of their careers. Starting at age 31, Bonds’ similar players become HOF (Snider, Mantle, FRobinson). Clemens has a similar thing. He was really starting to fall apart at the end in Boston. Without steroids, who knows where his numbers would have been - maybe winning just a little more than 200 games. When he went to Toronto, all of a sudden he got healthy and put together an unbelievable stretch.

There’s a book about Ty Cobb that says much of what we believe or have heard about him is not true - the racism, sharpening spikes, etc. I didn’t read it, but I heard the author on a podcast years ago. Google “Ty Cobb myths.”

I stumbled across Jedi yesterday and watched 20 minutes. Probably haven’t seen it in 10 years. Thankfully it was the first 20 minutes and not the last.

My wife was trying to help her Trump loving uncle register for the vaccine as it is now available for 65+ year olds here in AZ. She couldn’t make an appointment for him because the slots are already full (and I assume we’ll run out of the vaccine soon). Her uncle immediately started blaming Biden and Pelosi and saying it was a political conspiracy to limit who gets the vaccine. Seriously, these people are nuts.

I listened to both, and both were good. The Trump Inc one gets a little repetitive, but it shines a pretty bright light on the amount of corruption he has been involved in for his entire career. Sadly, I’m sure a deeper dive on many of our politicians and top 1% would reveal the same. It’s worth a listen for anyone with an open mind.