I need a reading vacation, my book in-queue is about to reach 50. It still hasn't recovered from the Powell's trip for olstad's wedding last year, and the instant gratification of Amazon's used book marketplace doesn't help either. Perhaps I should institute a moratorium on buying books until I read more...but I just keep figuring that I have the rest of my life to read them. Its the Long View.

2002 taxes are done and 2003 are almost done. The process really drives home the perverse incentives of the tax system. Every time I sell a stock at a loss, I cheer. Receipts for Rx drugs I bought locally (instead of from overseas) at incredibly high prices are wonderful. I am in transports about my success at earning no income in 2002 or 2003. This is fucked up!

Unfortunately I screwed up and have to pay $800 in self-employment (Social Security) taxes from 2002. Even though my total income was zero, my consulting biz made money because I wrote my Stanford tuition check on January 7th 2003, so I can't deduct it :(.

I bet the IRS agent whose estimates (based on stocks costing nothing) were that I'd made six digits is partly paid on commission. I wonder if she picked me based on those bogus estimates, in the hope of a nice score. She's gonna be mighty disappointed. Darn.