It’s income tax time again so that mean’s it’s time to have the passport handy and be ready to flee the country at a moment’s notice.

As a public service announcement (and a great way to work off 10 more hours of community service from my parole) I’m going to help you, the average American citizen, complete your taxes in a modern, efficient and even semi-legal manner.

Here’s the old way you used to fill out your income taxes every year:

You sit down on the evening of April 14th and you pull out the traditional tax form tools: two #2 pencils, a pencil sharpener, an extra eraser, a calculator, a ruler, a cup of coffee, a large carving knife, a fifth of Jack Daniels, a lighter, a carton of Marlboros, a gram of cocaine, a mirror and straw, three rubber chickens and a loaded .45 automatic.

You sift through your various W-2’s and 1099’s and B-54’s, randomly scratching in numbers and banging on the calculator and sharpening the pencils with your knife until you get tired of the whole thing and call up Bernie, your smart-ass cousin who happens to work for H&R Block when he’s not drinking your beer and eating your chips and spilling both all over your couch. Bernie comes over, drinks more of your beer and suspiciously fills out all your tax forms in 15 minutes, conveniently forgetting to sign his own name. Later that month the IRS Enforcement Agents kick in your door and and haul you off to tax prison while that schmuck Bernie visits your hot, young wife and tries to console her by taking off his shirt and suggesting they go “lie down” in the master bedroom.

While this method of doing your income taxes works, it can understandably be very stressful.

The IRS understands this. The IRS wants to help. The IRS suggests it should lie down in the master bedroom with your hot young wife while you’re doing your taxes.

But the new way of doing taxes is much easier than the old way (especially on your wife). Rather than making taxes easier to complete, the IRS has decided to make them seem easier by forcing you use the one thing on this planet that is even more complex than the United States tax code: a computer.

Here’s the new way you’ll do your taxes:

You’ll sit down at your personal computer on April the 14th, play a couple games of solitaire just to “warm up”, put in your “Super-Duper Tax Buster Pro, Standard Premium Deluxe Edition” CD-ROM, double-click on the icon, choose a file name and path for the program, pick a directory location for your shortcut group, choose what sort of video and sound drivers your computers has, agree to some licensing thing which no one ever reads, wait while your computer loads the software, freezes half-way through, crashes your hard drive and bursts into pretty blue flames. You’ll panic and knock the computer on to the floor with your chair, only to have it set your drapes ablaze and spread the flames to your couch which will explode in a ball of fire due to all the dried beer spills.

As your house is burning down you’ll think about calling Bernie for help before you remember that he ran off with your wife while you were in prison last year. Don’t forget that the total destruction of your house means you’ll have to fill out IRS form 451 – Domicile Burnt To A Cinder which isn’t included on the “Super-Duper Tax Buster Pro, Standard Premium Deluxe Edition” CD-ROM.

You’ll need to buy the “Deluxe Premium Standard Pro” Edition for that.

Of course, if you had a Apple computer none of this would have ever happened because you wouldn’t have been able to find the tax software, or any software at all made later than 1998. But damn, it looks nice sitting on your desk.

But don’t let me give you the impression that filing your income taxes on a computer is all bad.

First, computer tax programs notify you of changes in the tax law from year to year. For example, did you know that you are now required to send in a nude photo of yourself with your 1040 form? (No staples please!) I bet you also didn’t know that you can get cheap V1aggra from Cannada and that Your Account Is About to Be Disabledd. My computer told me this, so it must be true.

Using a computer is also a great way to hide any errors you may have made on your taxes. If you filled out your income taxes the old way and figured out that the IRS owed you $791 billion dollars, you’d figured that you made a mistake and you’d go back and try to correct it.

If, however, the computer tells you that the IRS owes you $791 billion dollars on your income taxes, you can happily send the form in, knowing that computers never, ever make mistakes. When those heavily armed special agents drive through your front window with their personal assault vehicle, you can just blame “that darn computer” for the goofy error and have a good laugh over it between the beatings.

Though, personally, I think you should blame Bernie.

No Comments » | Email Link

It has come to my attention that some of you are not spending every waking moment eating, breathing, drinking, snorting and watching the Winter Olympics. This lack of interest is largely due to the fact that watching four spandex-wearing guys skate around a circle for three hours straight to obscure pieces of Russian music is much less exciting than watching just about anything else on TV, including fishing shows. At least you can make fun of fishing programs. Making satirical comments doesn’t really work during the Olympics.

“Hey, look at them there athletes! They sure are physically perfect!”

“Yeah, and most are intelligent, charming, and good-looking, too!”

“Wow, they’re so much better than us!”

As spoiled Americans we have come to expect non-stop excitement in our entertainment to the point where every program we watch on TV contains gratuitous sex, violence, or, if it’s really good, both.

“Thank you and welcome to Vatican Today. In the next 30 minutes we hope to show you shocking and gruesome guerrilla fighting scenes in Nicaragua, fire-eating priests in Texas and seven ways you can make prostitution a mortal sin with a banana and two cans of whip cream.”

This problem led me to come up with some new Winter Olympic events which will hopefully capture the interest of American viewers and strengthen the prevailing force and spirit behind the world-wide games. Namely, advertising.

Here they are:

Downhill Ski Slalom (Through a Minefield) - Remember that Wide World of Sports skier flailing his arms and legs through the air as the announcer spoke gravely about the “agony of defeat?” Now image that guy flailing through the air with his arms and legs about 20 feet ahead of him.

Ice Hockey (With Explosives) – You haven’t seen hockey players hustle until you’ve seen them slapping a live grenade around the ice instead of a wimpy puck. There would never, ever be any question as to whether a goal was scored in this version.

Curling (During a Hockey Game) - Because it would be a lot of fun to see even more front teeth sliding across the ice like Chicklets. With landmines.

Naked Figure Skating – Enough said.

Bobsledding (With Rocket Engines) – Let’s face it, a four guys squeezing together into a little cart and zipping downhill at eighty miles an hour is okay, but four guys squeezing together into a little cart and flying through the air at Mach 4 is much, much better.

Speed Skating (With Whips and Chains) – Think of the chariot race theme from Ben Hur. Now lose the horses, chariots and Romans. Heck, lose the clothing, too. And add some landmines. Now you have a sport.

Curling (On a Luge Track) - The Luge is an entertaining sport because there’s a hint of danger involved. Now imagine the chance to see some guy going ninety miles an hour slam into a stone the size of a watermelon with his groin. That’ll pull in the Nascar fans.

Biatholon Pursuit (Running Man Version) - Why bother skiing around in the woods and shooting little targets when you can watch people skiing around the woods shooting each other.

Sure, I’ll watch the Winter Olympics as they are now, but I’ll be waiting for the day when I can see the “15 Kilometer Downhill Naked Curling Luge Hockey event”…with landmines.

No Comments » | Email Link

I want to live a relaxed and comfy life, so I’ve been thinking about becoming a member of an Olympic team.

Sure, I may have to train hard for a couple of years and I’ll probably have to compete in the most stressful sporting event in the world, but once that is over I’ll be able to sit back and spend the rest of my days eating Cheese Doodles while quaffing beer in front of early 80’s sitcoms.

See, once I’ve competed in the Olympics I’ll be set for life because every four years or so I’ll be treated like a minor celebrity and trotted out in front of the cameras for all sorts of photo-shoots with other aging athletes for a brief two weeks before I can go back to collecting royalty checks from product endorsements. Endorsements are the real gold medals of the Olympics now. And the types of endorsements you can get are only limited by your imagination. For example:

• Grocery products – “When I was training for the Olympics, I couldn’t drink a beer that would fill me up right before the 500 meter speed skating event. So I drank Coor’s Light and skated like a champion!”
• Household products – “Buy a Hoover vacuum! It sucks like the Egyptian downhill ski team!”
• Books and autobiographies – all with the title “My Quest for the Gold” or “Golden Boy” or “Dreams of Gold”… probably not “Golden Shower.”
• Movie Rights – “The Competition: TERMINATED” – starring Tobey McGuire, Julia Roberts and Arnold Schwartzenegger in his first starring in over 10 years.
• Wheaties boxes – Wheaties cereal hasn’t been made since 1982. Wheaties boxes come filled with just old newspapers and sawdust because General Mills knows that only Wheaties box collectors actually buy them anymore.

But I understand that as a former Olympian I’ll still have a certain amount of work to do.

I mean, I’ll still have to make five minute appearances at conventions, smile a lot and charge people $10 for my autograph even though I haven’t done anything notable in 20 years. Celebrity status like this is something that is only reserved for former Olympic athletes and previous cast members of almost any crappy Star Trek incarnation.

As a washed up celebrity I’ll often appear on game shows and in commercials and even hang around on the fringes of major events for years to come. The only reason anyone will pay attention to me is because I’ve got a lot of free time on my hands so I can give lot of pointless interviews as though I’m an expert on everything:

“Sure, Bob, as a former Olympic athlete I know a lot about the space shuttle…”

Eventually I plan to land a cushy commentator job on some sports network where I’ll add “color” commentary such as “You know, most people don’t realize just how much a bowling ball to the face really hurts,” or “Wow, that bobsledding team was going really fast!”

There’s one catch, however.

If I really wish to pursue my Olympic dreams of celebrity then I’ll have to actually win something. You see, if I get a medal I’ll be cheered and loved for decades to come, living a life of vast wealth and amazing experiences. If I come in fourth place by seven thousandths of a second I’ll end up teaching high school gym classes for the next thirty years living off Ramen noodles and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

This could be a problem.

See I have a physique which doesn’t resemble the athletes themselves quite so much as it resembles the various pieces of padding and equipment that are used in the sports. And I’m not a thirteen year-old girl, which seems to be a requirement if I want to win a gold medal in anything.

So I’m too old, the wrong gender, I look lousy in a leotard (ask my wife) and I have the athletic competency of a Weeble.

But I’m a positive thinker, and I’m not going to allow a these little problems to crush my Olympic dreams. Instead of becoming an athlete, I’ll become a coach!

As an Olympic coach I’ll need three essential characteristics:

1. An unflagging ability to support and uplift athletes with my knowledge and experience.
2. A desire to dedicate my life to helping young people reach their dreams.
3. A mustache.

The first two will come naturally, so I’d better begin working on the facial hair. I need a bit of hair under my nose so that when I smile I look warm and supportive, and when I frown I look like Ghingas Kahn. This will come in handy as I scream my lungs out at some 11-year-old kid who couldn’t swim the 1500m breast-stroke in under 15 seconds – never mind the fact that there are nuclear submarines that can’t move that fast.

Even in the facial hair department I may have some personal challenges. Most Olympic coaches have mustaches which look as though one of those wooly caterpillars has fallen asleep and died right on there on the upper lip. Unfotunately, my own facial hair growth is less than stellar. My previous attempts to a mustache have resulted in most people asking if the fuzz on my face was part of some sort of bizarre science experiment involving shag carpet remnants and a staple gun.

Even with all these challenges, I’m not going to be discouraged from my Olympic dreams. Instead, I’m going to keep training patiently and hope for the day when the Olympic committee finally recognizes the one event in which I excel:

Web surfing!

No Comments » | Email Link