| 04 May 2004 at 03.48.45 ZuluTime
|
Posted by Gremlin [24.8.27.194 - c-24-8-27-194.client.comcast.net] on 04 May 2004 at 03.48.45 ZuluTime:
A couple of interesting things. Which should really go off and be a What's New. But, right at the moment, I'm too deep into my latest headache to fuck around with the coding. The board does all the formatting for me, taking little thought at all.
Anyway: a couple of things.
Once I stop instinctively hitting Tab every time I hit Return.
Okay. So, as of today, I've officially begun writing Pandemic. Which is to say that I'm no longer playing around with the indicia, or pretending to plot out notes I'd never actually follow anyway. The book is underway.
By about three percent, probably. I've got a set upper limit of about six hundred pages on this thing, and I've produced about twenty. Most of which, of course, is character development and situational setup. I'm not entirely thrilled with the second chapter as it currently is; but, since it's a sort of introductory chapter [its purpose is primarily to set up a specific character--background, personality, and so on], I've got until the character actually develops a true reason to exist in the novel [interaction with other necessary characters] to rethink and secondguess a few factors. Which will ultimately be the next roadblock, if history is any guide. Sooner or later, I'll have created and introduced most of the more major players in the scenario, individually or in small groups, and then stop for a day or two so I can forget everything up to that point, reread it all, wonder what in hell I was thinking, and fix a few small and inevitable problems. That done, I'll be able to throw all my little victims together and let them live their lives...some longer than others, of course.
So, that's pretty good news, I think. A couple of specially selected individuals have already read the novel to date--which is to say that they were in the room at the time--and they seemed to like it so far. Although--and I can't stress this strongly, or, apparently, often enough--do not ask me, in the middle of Page Ten, why Homer J Character did X, when the fucking answer is on Page Eleven. Hold your questions until the end; I kinda know what I'm doing here, okay? Great. Lets move on....
Other news.
So I'm sitting at VillageIdiot, not being the loud one. Which is to say that, ah, here on the board he goes by MondoHebe [which isn't terribly inaccurate, I suppose] who, IRL, is rather a bellowing history professor and who by nature attracts the attention of evesdroppers in Nebraska. So, having attracted the attention of more local evesdroppers, and then splitting to leave me holding the bag, he happened to connect me to this interesting chick who, as luck would have it, is a retired employee of the Social Security Administration.
As some of the older regulars may already know, I've got these neat little headaches. Migraines. Debilitating [without hyperbole], paralysing harbingers of Dante's Hell. They don't follow any set schedules, so, in the event that I happened to be employed by a given company, I couldn't promise whether I'd be able to stop by the office tomorrow, or even call to let them know why I couldn't. Which, I've learned the hard way, is a good way to become unwittingly resigned. If you don't show up, you're presumed to have quit. It's just how businesses tend to operate, fair or not.
So, I was diagnosed with this debilitating condition in 1985, at which approximate instant Dad the Uberlawyer assembled a phalanx of mouthpieces to muscle the SSA into paying me large sacks of cash just for being unable to stand up on any given day.
In 1985, however, migraines weren't considered a disability. Even though a I could be paralysed from the neck down and waste eight hours a day in a telemarking boilerroom, if only I lacked migraines. Which was a really, really stupid characteristic of the Unconscious States of Duhmerica.
Lo and behold, someone somewhere developed a brain, and, in recentish years, migraines have finally been added to the list of acceptable disabilities. Of course, anymore, you could stub you toe and qualify for disability; but that's a separate gripe.
So. I could, for the sake of argument, remind these imbeciles that I get these headaches and net about three thousand bucks a month. Yay for me.
Except.
For years, I've been complaining that, as far as I'm concerned, based on the laws and the criteria, the ASS owe me, to date, nineteen years in backpay. For my own amusement, I presume that they also owe me nearly two decades of compiled interest. The fact of the matter, it turns out, is somewhere in between.
Apparently, provided that I have, in point of fact, got migraines--and I most certainly have--the ASS are, it turns out, required to give me not only the three thousand bucks a month, but also the three thousand bucks from every month back to and including, if memory serves, April 1985.
I could be wrong about that. It may have been as early as January 1985, adding twelve thousand bucks to the total. But, just to be simple with the math [something I happen to live for], let's play this out to the nearest year.
Three thousand bucks a month for twelve months is thirty-six thousand dollars.
Thirty-six thousand a year for nineteen years is, ahem: six hundred eighty-four thousand dollars.
Taxfuckingfree.
So, I happen to find that noteworthy, personally.
Which gives me a couple of interesting options. Three, actually.
First, I could do nothing, and get no money. But I'm not thrilled about that option, simply as a matter of principle. These imbeciles owe me nearly seven hundred thousand bucks. Knowing that is nearly enough to make me happy; getting them to concede that point by handing it to me might make me happier still. Even if I got the money and used it to give a dollar to everyone I met for the next few years, it would be worth it on principle. So sitting here doing nothing about it at all seems a bit silly, to me.
Second, I could fill out some paperwork, send it off to the proper morons, deal with the proper morons proving to be even less intelligent than I currently suspect, and generally do this aggrivating job CoD, getting some seven hundred thousand bucks one of these months, once they develop the minimal cognition required to read their own fucking rules. I suppose that could conceivably take another nineteen years, to err on the side of probability.
Third, of course, I could hand the entire mess off to anyone who's ever seen an episode of Matlock, and let them annoy these 'tards enough to effect the same basic outcome, paying them, to date, $228,000 for their trouble, while keeping $456,000 for mine. Plus, of course, an extra three thousand a month for the rest of eternity or so. Which is also a viable option, I suppose.
I haven't yet decided which of these options I'll run with, but I'm not thinking Number One at this point. If only because I've got a larger interest in punishing these dickweeds than I have in rewarding myself. Not that I'd have a hell of a lot of difficulty finding a use for an extra seven hundred thousand bucks or so. Like, say, awarding a new Corvette to the visitor who happens to post Message Number XYZ to the board, just because I can. Which, I should mention, is the sort of shit I do when I've got the disposeable wherewithal. Which, incidentally, occurs roughly every ten years. Which, coincidentally, hasn't been the case for about ten years now. Which is yet more simple math.
Of course, ten and twenty years ago, I managed to amass a decent amount of capital by flying well under the radar of taxation--which is to say that I didn't make it in any terribly legal manner; but, the statutes of limitations are now extinct, and, pending any actual evidence of anything at all, it never officially happened. So, again, by law, the Duhmerican Government owe me roughly seven hundred thousand bucks. No personal cheques, please.
Not that it's quite that simple. Either latter option requires legwork from someone. But, I'll probably do something about it. It's, like, my patriotic duty, or something.
Okay, so maybe I'll do it anyway.
That's the news; I have to go not be alive in any functional sense for several hours now. It's kinda my job, you see....
--Gremlin