Every now and again, changes occur around here. Most notably, I’ve changed the order of the sidebar and added another widget: Twitter.

Yes, yes, I’ve finally joined in the crapfest that is Twitter. I think it’s more than a little stupid, but so many people are on it including those I know personally.

Back in November, I spoke with Bobby about this

Bobby: oh, do you twitter?
Steneub: no no… no faggoty micro-blogs. That’s what YOU’re for, so I can just dump whatever I’m thinking on YOU rather than the rest of the world
Steneub: and I also already have a big-boy blog
Bobby: haha
Bobby: you mean old like the dinosaur blog
Bobby: twitter is the new hotness
Steneub: you’re just jealous ’cause you can’t afford a REAL webpage

See! I hated it before I succumbed, I swear! It was true though about me dumping on Bobby whatever popped into my head. I would simply message him the biggest non-sequiturs and the best paet is he would roll with it most of the time.

Now I have all of you to dump on! Muahaha!

I miss you dancing Tax People.

You know who I’m talking about: all those folks on the streetcorners across the city with their picket signs that read 3 days left to file. The better ones breakdance, but even the worst among them still wave at the passing traffic. It’s a clever way to bypass some municipalities’ ordinances of businesses not being allowed to post any signs or billboards.

It’s April 16th now and I’m sad they’re gone. At whom will I have left to honk cheerfully as I pass? I thought there might be someone today with Forgot to file? Come inside and do it late today!, but no.

Ame and I came up with the idea to just do it anyway and insult people at the same time.

Hey Jackass! File your fucking taxes!

The Tax people in the center near the corner would be mad, but then you could be all like, “Haha you can’t prove I’m not supposed to be here, I’m the Gingerbread Man!” And then run off flipping people the bird telling them to file their taxes. This world I live in inside my head, I don’t know if it’s a happy place, but it’s certainly interesting, and there’s definitely nothing little about it.

Also, if you haven’t done it, you really should. The IRS will come after you in 2020 if you keep this up…

This is a growing problem, this illegal immigration thing. Rather, it’s a problem that’s been big for quite some time, but the scale seems more apparent lately. There are some big questions out there, and some pretty creative solutions, but if you know me, I don’t think they’ll work, or if they do work, it sacrifices too much liberty.

The crux of the problem is there is only so much money to pay for a certain amount of people. If a budget is done properly, then every dollar has a place to go. Assuming an air-tight budget (and this is a massive assumption!), but with more people receiving services than there ought be, this causes some problems.

The first draft of my solution is a state-issued I.D. must be shown when receiving state services. This doesn’t really work, because all it does is show there are X number of people receiving Y services that should not. While valuable information, it’s simply information for its own sake.

I wanted to come up with a something that hits home rather than fear of The Man. Also important is I didn’t want to provide a recipe for a totalitarian presence setting up checkpoints and asking for my “papers.” It’d be comical in a sardonic way, and certainly not funny especially if it were to happen to you, yourself.

And then it hit me: Economics. Don’t give the state or federal government any more power (they have more than enough as it is), and have the states simply adjust what they already have authority over.  Increase the state sales tax by 20% and have retailers provide a 20% sales-tax discount if a state-issued I.D. can be shown. This means citizens can buy what they’ve always bought for the same exact prices they always have, but those without I.D. have to pay for the markup.

This one solution attacks on more than one front:

1. It provides the much-needed extra coin to the state treasury to pay for the services that illegal immigrants use.
2. If goods are too expensive to buy, those without I.D.s will simply leave and go somewhere else – preferably back to their country of origin or, less optimally, another state in which this is not place. 

Of course there no plan is perfect, but the flaws present are not inherent to the plan itself. The extra money raised will likely not be used properly by those in power. This is a corruption issue that I can’t begin to think about solving. Another question to ask is “how do the retailers prove the I.D. is legitimate?” Add another step to the checkout process and, in states with magnetic stripes on their drivers licenses, swipe the card in the credit card reader to qualify for the discount. Again, if corrupt people decide to keep recordsof these transactions and attach them to some profile, that’s not the plan’s fault unless naiveté is a flaw.

Let me start by saying I love the Ratchet & Clankseries and their double-entendre subtitles for their sequels (except Deadlocked, which, if that’s some sort of freaky sex position, I don’t think I want to know), and Size Matters does not disappoint on that front - just every other front.

I finished the game in about 6 hours, there were only a handful of pea-shooter weapons that upgraded just a couple of times, the comedy “spark” was completely absent, minigames were uninspired and boring (except for the Lemmingsclone), the music repetitively and annoying, unbalanced boss-battles (I found myself tearing my hair out over copious amounts of bullshit), and individual levels that seemed truncated at best.

What happened to you Ratchet & Clank? You used to be cool…

High Impact Games? Where the hell did you come from? What happened to Insomniac? Those are the real developers of any Ratchet & Clank game of mine.

Lowest rating I think I can dole out in my rating system: Half a star out of five. Gross.

This is a week late, but I don’t care. I can’t stand April Fools bullshit in my information resources. Yes, we all know it’s hilarious to make jokes, Hah-hah, but when I tune into the news (print, radio, TV, Internet, etc), I should not have to run shit through my April 1st filter.

Just stop it!