Alright, I think I've just about had my fill of automated emails from online "e"-businesses for one day. tuxgames.com sending all sorts of wonderful info about the progress of the Tribes 2 shipment (including a mass mailing from the CEO, making what I see as an honorable attempt to set things right with customers who preordered and had credit cards charged weeks or months ago, before Loki decided to lower the price). Stuff from ebgames (have I gone overboard?) about my round of get 'em while they're $10 purchase (just shipped), a message notification from keslin.com, and then... oh yes. Taxes. Yipee. Taxes.

I decided I was going to do this tonight. No later. I have procrastinated long enough, and now it is time to get the damn thing out of the way. (Hey, you think I'm bad? My dad still hasn't filed his, and he didn't seem terribly concerned about it at dinner either.)

After Chinese for dinner, and a brief personal toiletry supply run to Wal Mart (which somehow also ended up including 2 cheaply priced DVD's), I bit the bullet. I had surfed irs.gov a bit earlier, and decided to try to make a go of web filing (having always done it on dead tree before). Got online, went to [url undisclosed], and was all ready to charge in.

After going through Create Account stuff and making a login, I was set. Or so I thought. Went into what was supposed to be the filing page, a new window popped up, and then... I'm not sure what it was supposed to be. A big ugly mess of nothing.

Went back to the main site, clicked around, found their faq, and found this: Supported browsers: Netscape 4.x (NOT Netscape 6), IE 4,5.

"Oh great! So we have this flavor of moronic web design." I reluctantly opened the so-seldom-used-it-still-had-those-silly-cgi-prompts-on Netscape4. Tried to open the site, and got another surprise.

Immediately after logging in, a popup message flashed up and disappeared too quickly to read, and then the login window (itself a popup) closed. No further explanation. I tried the login process a bunch of times, and finally maneged to make out something containing "requires at least 256 colors" and "800x600 or larger screen size". There may have been something else, but the thing disappeared too quickly to really read.

Well, not that it should be any of their idiot business, but I do in fact run at 16-bit color, and at 1024x768. Back to the FAQ, where I was insulted with instructions on how to position the taskbar. Depending on one's mood, it's either frustrating or funny.

At this point, I was pretty certain that these people were not going to get my business. If a company is so incompetent that it can't even put together a web page which gives a readable error message about why their malconceived attempt at web authoring doesn't work, how can they be trusted to handle sensitive financial calculations and transactions?

I clicked on the Feedback link, and considered leaving them a note. Hmmm... But what to say? A sarcastac jab? It would feel good, but that probably wouldn't do anybody much good. Pretend to be a mock dummy user? "I clicked, but it wouldn't work, mommy!" Or just an informative note, stating that their poor attention to usability had cost them a sale?

I closed the window, and decided it just wasn't worth my time.

Strike one. On to the next attempt.

For my second try, I went to a name well known in the brick-and-mortar arena. I thought this might do better, since an established player would have (hopefully) have some experience, and funding to setup a good system. Pahaha. How silly of me.

I managed to get to the "create an account" screen. And that's about as far as it got. Hit their little submit button graphic. Nothing happened. Don't know why. Didn't feel like investigating other people's JavaScript mistakes.

Strike Two. I decided that if the third attempt didn't yield results, I would go back to pen and paper.

And so it was that I came across ezTaxReturn. Upon first entering, I was skeptical. The whole thing felt very marketing-ish, the instructions a little too dummy-like, and their proud assertion of being able to file online with "No Forms" had me wondering. (If ya don't use forms, then how the hell are ya gonna get people's info off the web?) But indeed, they did use forms; quite a large quantity of them.

Walked through the steps, put in all the info asked for. The instructions were always very clear, and although I generally abhore popups, I found the little popup window links describing tax accounting terms quite useful on many occassions. In fact, the whole thing had an extremely setup wizard-ish feel to it.

I got my federal taxes done . I still have to do state, but those are usually a breeze after the federal. Fortunately, I was not one of those poor souls who had exercised stock options last year, so everything was actually pretty simple for me.

Yeah, the ezTaxReturn was a chunk more expensive than the others I attempted, but at least it worked. You get what you pay for.

lol.

I hate being up this late, and it's past my bedtime. My sleep patterns are all fucked to hell anyway. A sign of the times, I suppose. The Lair has again somehow reverted to the state of being a collosal mess. I "discovered" this fact while I was searching for certain documents required for tax preparation.

I don't even feel sleepy. But I should.

TGIF. I can say that now, because it's past midnight.

I'm gonna try soothing down with a little music and go to bed. All ye souls.