Supposedly the State of Georiga passed a law authorizing a new “Share the Road” specialty license plate for cars. A bike messenger in Canada who won the right to deduct extra food expenses as “fuel.” Supposedly he uses more than 4,000 calories a day.

The Home Depot near me has had 4 of the Self-Checkout machines. I was there this evening about three hours before closing, there were NO HUMAN LANES OPEN, only the Self-Checkout lanes were open. The world did not come to an end. I just find it interesting that more low end jobs are being eroded away. I don’t know what people with college degrees will do in the future.

I’m finishing my tax returns, and I’m a little miffed – not at the amount of tax, but at the amount of time. The IRS estimates I will need 146 hours to process just one of my tax returns.

I received a credit card from Chase. I immediately called them, explained that I didn’t want it, and they told me they would cancel it and purge the records. The next month, however, the statement arrived with a single charge of over $800 from Macromedia. Chase responded to my letter by just sending a copy of my statement. I wrote numerous certified letters and they replied with form letters that didn’t addresses the issue. Finally, I gave up and just ignored them. A company called “Georgia Receivables” owned by a lawyer here in Atlanta bought them. They sued me for it. I did get some legal advice from several lawyers and was able to successfully defend myself. Georgia Receivables gave up and dismissed the case. Chase had placed a charge-off on my credit reports for the bogus account. Given that the amount wasn’t very much, it looked like I could not even afford the $19 “minimum monthly payment.” I sent each of the credit reporting agencies a letter explaining the situation. All three credit reporting agencies wrote me back and told me that they would only accept a change initiated by Chase and that they would not accept documentation from me.