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Enron I'm not
Well, I finished them. I waited until the very last minute because I knew I'd have to pay and I just couldn't face it. Yessir, here in America even the relatively impecunious have the privilege of helping our Uncle Sam. What's more, they get more hands-on attention from the IRS. (Now ain't that nice?) If you're in the lowest earnings bracket, for example, you have a 1 in 47 chance of being audited. For those making over $100,000, the odds drop to something like 1 in 147. Willie Sutton would never understand.

What got me in trouble this year, besides being smart as a stump, was being a freelancer. Between my wife and myself, this was the very first time neither of us earned any money that had withholding tax deducted. I knew we were making so little that income tax wouldn't be a problem, but I had no idea what the Social Security tax percentage was. I do now, of course. I must have known intuitively all along. Why else wait until the last minute to face the music? [whine, snivel] Anyway, the only good thing about paying taxes in the digital age is that you can get the required forms as PDFs from irs.gov. That one thing has saved me more grief than anything. Heck, I actually remember sending off for forms and getting them delivered in the mail. . . If the Internet is good for anything, it's for helping last-minute filers like me. What, I need to include Form 8829? No problem. Download, print, then write the check. Aieeee!

And speaking of taxes, here are the software programs I paid for and deducted this past year: Mac OS X 10. something (yeah, yeah), Claris Homepage 3.0 (just before it vanished), Norton Systemworks (now being given away as newspaper advertising inserts), and unidentified shareware for $29.95. Yes, I paid for shareware. Can't remember what it was, but I paid for it, and I'm sure it's enhancing my Mac computing experience even as we speak.

On to better things
I was delighted this Sunday to pick up the Santa Fe New Mexican and read Denise Kusel's Only in Santa Fe column all about Mac lady Robin Williams. Familiar to many of you, Ms. Williams is famous for The Little Mac Book, The Mac Is Not a Typewriter, and now The Little Mac OS X Book. There are two things cool about all this: the first is accidentally finding an interview with a Mac author in a local newspaper, and the second is learning that Ms. Williams (who lives in Santa Fe) is a gutsy, capable woman with enviable life skills and a terrific attitude.

The author has a total of thirty-six books to her credit, by the way, which certainly puts a crimp in my late bloomer's ego. And she didn't get where she is today by goofing off (take a look at the interview and see what you think). Her latest project is a book about the woman she believes wrote "the words attributed to William Shakespeare," a hot topic bound to flip a few dead white guys' coffins, I'll bet. About this new non-computer direction for herself, she says:

"Besides, I don't have a tenure to lose. If I fail, I'll invent somebody new. Do something else."

I put those words in boldface because they have a special resonance this particular April 15th, and I'll bet I'm not the only one reading this who respects the optimism and creativity they embody. Just the kind of thing you expect to hear from a true Mac user, at least in an ideal world. (The analytical genius who sent me the lovely email blaming my commie treehugger bias on the fact that I live "in shitsplat New Mexico" is in another category altogether.)

Naked hippies, no sex!
My recent comments on kiddies and Internet censorship, with particular reference to the rat's nest of rules and silliness afflicting iBook use in public schools, elicited a fair amount of psychopathic bile and more than a few concerned comments from more gracious readers. I respect and honor everyone's desire to do the right thing but will always maintain that demonizing sex the way we have done in our culture is far worse than any emotional confusion experienced by a 7th-grader looking at a picture of someone he doesn't know trying to mate with a dog, a girl scout, or the ugly guy next door.

A long time ago I lived with a bunch of friends in the Ozarks and nobody wore any damn clothes (weather permitting). We had to watch out for local yokels driving up the lane to catch a peek, but that was the only concern. We all weeded the garden bare-assed, went skinny-dipping in the river with a bar of soap to get clean, etc. Even when dressed, the cry of "TICK CHECK!" meant that someone was pulling down their pants, wherever they happened to be, to intercept another bloodsucking arachnid. There was more bug-bit pimply naked flesh than I've seen since, everything you can think of flopping in the breeze, but no sex (sob). I always figured that having it in our faces all the time kinda took the allure out of it, or maybe it was the tick bites, I dunno. Maybe we were just weird. I know Sylvia was (hah!)...

This proves absolutely nothing but goes a long way toward improving my post-tax mood and gives me a chance to reminisce. The funny thing was, for years afterwards I only went skinny-dipping. When I moved to Maryland and met a bunch of new folks, we all went down to the bay one day for a party. I didn't even own a bathing suit or bring one, but everyone else did, so I went swimming in my shorts. Months later I visited the same spot with my sweetie and we did it (swimming) the right way. I won't tell you what happened when we got home, but I will say it had nothing to do with being naked on the beach.

At least I don't think so.

("Grack!")

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr runs a few sites of his own: Zoozone, Fotofeed, and JHFarr.com. All of them are coded in the nude.

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Apr. 8: "Turn Left at the Llamas" Apr. 1: "April Drool" Mar. 25: "Tuzas on the Curb" Mar. 18: "Holy Ghostbeak" Mar. 11: "Lord of the Turkeys" Mar. 4: "The Heart of the Matter" Feb. 25: "New Stuff: Browsers, Servers, etc." Feb. 18: "Mascot Lore & More" Feb. 11: "Killer Email & Wiccan PotLuck" Feb. 4: "Meanies, Guerillas, & Subscription Copycats" Jan. 28: "Full Moon Frenzy, w/ PowerMacs" Jan. 21: "iMacs & Webmaster Schadenfreude" Jan. 14: "Was It Only a Week Ago?" Jan. 7: "Useless Column" Dec. 31, '01: "I Want a Refund"

AUDIO CREDIT: embedded 44k file, European Birds -- Sounds and Sonograms.

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