Cause I'm the taxed man.

Guess who gets to file an amended tax return (form 1040SUCKER)? I do!

After being what I thought was incredibly expedient (look it up, kids) by filing my tax returns way early, and receiving refunds from both my state and federal governments, my employer handed me a form 1099 the other day. That would be the form with all of the income I earned last year that tax was NOT withheld from. Oh, joy. Now do I not only have to file another form, but give back some of that money that I have already mentally spent. Hmmm. I guess the platform shoes with the real live aquarium in them will have to wait.

P.S. I'm not entirely sure I know what "expedient" means, so if any of you should look it up, and it doesn't make sense in the context of that sentence, please don't tell me. You'll shatter my fragile ego.

Experience This

Greetings. I returned from Seattle Monday night. And the cold or flu that I had left behind came right back because it missed me so much. This is getting ridiculous. I am on about my third or fourth cold/flu of the season. I'm getting a little peeved.

The trip was a lot of fun. I was visiting my friend Maureen, who goes to Seattle University, with Heather and our friends Brittaney and Joel. We stayed with Heather's aunt and uncle who live in an undisclosed area of Washington. We did a lot of cool things, like built a snowman, saw a great production of Heller's Catch 22, visited the Experience Music Project (aka EMP), went to Pike's Public Marketplace (as seen in Sleepless in Seattle), and ate at a bunch of cool little restaurants, including an all-vegetarian diner, and a mexican restaraunt playing (bad) hip-hop. The EMP was very cool, but I had a bit higher expectations of it. It really was amazing, though, to see things like the guitar Jimi Hendrix used at Woodstock, or a steel-string guitar (still in playable condition) from about 1800. If you're in Seattle, go see it.

I apologize for this relatively boring post, and will return to my usual witty self very soon.

I'm a Little Snow Angel

Hey everybody, I'm in Seattle. It's snowing. I'm having fun. Ha ha.

Grant Shellen, Staff Writer or
Grant Shellen, Rock Star

I had no idea it had been so long since my last post. Or since my last haircut. But I took care of the latter the other day. Anyway, here I am in the beginning of a new semester, hopefully my last in Fremont. If I don't get in to any of the schools I applied to, I think I might join up with the "Semester Abroad" program, and spend three months at Cambridge University in England. Or go to Cal State Hayward, as part of the "A Broad A Semester" program. But I digress. This semester seems to be going pretty well, and I'm even writing for the school newspaper. I had my first front page byline the other day. That was a big change from the first article I wrote, which was tucked away on the second-to-last page, nestled between the Mission Pizza coupons and the ad for DeVry Institute. The only thing I'm not so happy about this semester is that I have to read about 900 books. [Ed. note: Not true.] The other problem is that there seems to be at least one person in each of my classes that I would like to beat. [Ed. note: Also not true. He would also like to see them maimed by tigers.]

In addition to the exciting events I have just mentioned, I have also joined a band. (I think.) I now play bass with the former guitarist and drummer of the local, now-defunct Bud Court. I look forward to being in a band again, and already, I have a wad of groupies following me around. Ok, they're all 9-year-old girls. Girl Scouts, actually. And technically they're trying to collect money from me for the Thin Mints I ordered, but a guy can dream, can't he?