Taxes

So I've been busy this week doing my American taxes. I started out using Taxcut's website but ran into a problem entering my UK wages. After contacting their useless customer service, I switched to Taxact. I was able to finish my federal return last night with no problem. That was the easy part. Now I get to struggle with my Pennsylvania return. I found a link online that gives you a discount on Taxact so you can fill both federal and state for less than $12, which is a good bit less than what Taxcut and Turbotax want.

In other news, for some reason, the Mormons of Scotland keep trying to convert me. Out of all the people who walk past them, they always pick me to be the one they try to talk to. I guess its kind of a compliment that they want me to join their religion.

Letter from America

Since I'm posting the Proclaimers, here is another of their songs. This one is pretty topical for this blog.

Letter from America - The Proclaimers - MyVideo

Good Bye East Stand

Saturday was the last game for Hibernian's East Stand at Easter Road before it will be turn down and replaced with a new stand. Unfortunately, St Johnstone didn't follow the script. Instead of a glorious victory to see off the old stand, it was a pretty unenjoyable draw. Before the game, Hibs announced that demolition would start pretty promptly this week. The result was that people went crazy after the game trying to take everything with them. And by everything, I mean everything. I took one of the seats. The stand was littered with pieces of green plastic from seats that broke into pieces when people tried to snap them off. Other people were taking concession stand menus, seat number signs, etc... One guy even took the women's restroom's sign, which had to be the grossest place ever. Some people got away with the green doors to the turnstiles.

On a more personal note, I'm going to miss the old stand. While I haven't been a Hibs supporter for as long as some people, the stand did have an uniquely Hibernian character. There was something different about watching a game from there. It was a link to the club's past. It's sad to see it go.

Some sunshine on leith

Avatar in IMAX 3D

Last weekend I saw Avatar at the IMAX theater at the Glasgow science center. Getting tickets was a pain in the ass as they were selling out over two weeks in advance. It was worth the wait to see it at the IMAX. The huge screen made it seem like you were actually on the planet at times. The 3D effort was cool but at the same time not distracting. I had heard bad things about the plot, but it was fine. A little predictable at times but good enough to keep you interested in the movie.

Missed Fastnacht Day

Tuesday was Fastnacht Day and I completely missed it. For some reason I thought that fat Tuesday was the following week. I don't believe that I celebrated Fastnacht Day in university due to the difficulty of buying anything resembling a fastnacht, but I was planing on making a serious effort to at least find doughnuts that were similar. 363 days to go until the next one...

Update

Since I'm staying home from work today because I came down with the flu yesterday, I figured I could post a brief update of what I've been up to.

I've been on two short business trips in the past two weeks. One to London and the other to Birmingham. I took the 1st class Virgin train to Birmingham. It was a pretty nice train ride with beautiful scenery. The sleeper train was still the more memorable trip though. The city of Birmingham is a different story. It was probable the crapest British city I've been to. I also got the feeling that it was the most American-like city I've been to, but I kept that to myself.

I stayed up and watched the Super Bowl on BBC One. It was really weird without the commercials.

Centralia's final days

Here is an interesting story my local paper back in PA ran on Centralia. Centralia is a town in Pennsylvania with a coal vein on fire underneath it. The government has slowly moved people out over the decades turning it into a kind of ghost town.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/02/centralia_could_be_facing_its.html