Yeah, but I just wanted to specifically point out the brands he mentioned.

as well as a 110v plug (which is almost useless since 110v charges so slow).

I admittedly don't regularly charge at home, only because we have free chargers at work (and I only do that 1-2 times a week).. But I still don't get this attitude.

Plug in when you get home, your car is (at least partially -- e.g. for a Tesla) charged the next morning... cheaper than gas. Your car also has timers to charge, so you can make it only start charging at a certain time if you are on time of day pricing for electricity.

Umm.. currently available vehicles:

Honda Insight -- plug in hybrid.
Toyota Prius - plug in hybrid (a version of the Prius)
GM - Spark - pure electric, and of course the Volt - plug in hybrid.

I have no idea about Ford.

(I have a smart EV.)

Well, obviously your mistake was making an _image_ of the hard drive, rather than copying all of the *files*.. (possibly doing both, if you had the space..)

This is the Planet Money story about LEGO.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...

$40 for a set you build one time that takes an hour or so

BTW, you realize that even though the kit may be for a specific Star Wars vehicle, you can still use the various parts to create whatever you want?

Also, while I too somewhat bemoan the "everything's a kit, not just a bunch of plain LEGO" (though I know you can still buy plain LEGO), from the same podcast I mention another response (likely a Planet Money podcast), licensed properties basically saved LEGO, because cheaper plastic bricks were undercutting them (even though theirs do apparently actually stick together better, as someone else mentioned).

Megablocks are not LEGOs. They are made by a different company, and "happen to" be sort-of compatible with proper LEGOs. If you have ever tried comparing them, you'd be sure to find that Megablocks do not stick together as well as LEGOs - I believe that LEGOs are produced to much finer tolerances than Megablocks.

In a podcast I listened to recently, I'm pretty sure it was one of the Planet Money ones from within the past year or two (I started with the very beginning of their feed several weeks ago and am close to catching up), they talked about how the LEGO molds have markings (possibly numbers, I forget that exact detail) so you can tell in EXACTLY which mold and which location a particular piece came from, so that if it didn't come out properly, you can find/fix the mold.

It is the same singular or plural.

Well, wouldn't you rather have that $2 than the government?

Plus, as I said in another response, I'd *rather* owe (but not enough to have a penalty) at the end of the year.

There just isn't enough space and more importantly WATER in the area.

We're never going to actually run out of water. Water may very well become very EXPENSIVE, but if we really need to, we obviously can desalinate the oceans.

BTW, the vast vast majority of water is used for crops, and CA farmers have been switching to more thirsty crops over the decades. In an article I read over the weekend that was in the SJ Mercury (but it was from I think a week or two ago, yes I read old papers), an almond takes a gallon of water to grow, a walnut takes 5 gallons.

everybody wants to live near work

Actually, not true, and that's exactly what this article is about. It's about people living in SF, and commuting to Silicon Valley. Jeez, I'm only a couple of miles from work, and I wish I were closer.

If you're getting refunds, you have too much withheld, and are giving the government an interest-free loan.

You don't have to pay taxes on interest or dividend income? Your employer doesn't know that.

I have no idea how long ago your story is from (I've been doing web filing since the late 1990s..) For at LEAST many years now, you can get a PDF. ...and while you don't EXACTLY fill in a "1040-like form", in many specific areas (e.g. filling in W2, etc.), you do have the option of "direct entry" that looks very close to the regular form you get, OR question & answer format.

I choose the direct entry for the things that are just "enter a bunch of numbers". (Yeah, that should be automatically entered, and is apparently for some people.) But for other things, I think the Q&A is far more useful.

If you just want to literally enter a 1040, jeez, just doing it on paper isn't MUCH more work. At least originally, the free govt e-file WAS literally a form, and it wouldn't even do the math for you.. I think that was due to the tax prep companies complaining.

Am I trusting my tax data to online services? Fat chance. Too many people have my data already.

What, do you think the tax services themselves will commit identity fraud, or someone will rip off the data FROM the tax services, or what?

Or even not a 'small' debt. Theoretically, the best would be to owe $.01 less than what would give you an underpayment penalty.

I don't actually try to get that close, but definitely don't "woohoo" like some people do about a tax refund.