Tax Day frugal update

Filing taxes presented two challenges this year. The first was finding a service that would do them for free, which required some in-depth searching. The complication for me was that during last year's hard times, I'd sold some of my investments and most of the free services think that this extra form calls for an upgrade to their $40-70(!) premium services. Luckily, FreeTaxUSA stayed faithful to its moniker, unlike the other dopey sites.

The other challenge to paying taxes this year is where that money is going right now. At the city level, when my car was vandalized last year and the thief left blood and a knife at the scene (in an apartment complex with children), the Lynnwood PD took a look, told me that they rarely catch the suspects in these cases, and promptly left. Also, calling the public works department was fruitless in asking if I should be concerned about my orange bathwater. At the state level, the governor punched Comcast in the face with a super-strict net neutrality law, so that's a bonus. Also, Washington state healthcare benefits when I was unemployed were awesome to have and easy to sign up for, so no grudges there. Taxes at the federal level? That was the biggest barrier to not filing an extension or just mailing the IRS a recycled envelope with a photocopy of my middle finger (black and white, of course, it's cheaper.) I don't recommend running from the IRS, but it's hard not to ignore the fact that the highest office in the land won't release taxes (because he didn't pay them,) and big douchebag companies like Apple and Google haven't paid a cent in corporate taxes for years. I'm going to stop there because this blog is supposed to be about frugality, Japan and video games. I'm also simplifying something I don't understand and I want to keep some integrity in this blog.

Back to the update: I have socked away $2150 of the year's $8000 goal so far. That is about $500 behind schedule, but if I put most of my tax refund into the market, that will sync things up again.

Frugal steps taken in 2018, in no particular order:

I have only spent money in a cafe once, using a gift card. The balance is that I spend about $30 per month on my favorite coffee from LaVazza and Costco espresso beans.

Comcast emails me a few weeks before my actual billing, and I noticed that my premium was going to jump from the usual $60 to $80. They restructured their speed tiers and were about to charge me more for the same level of service. I spent my first work break clearing that shit up. By the way, the speed boost is a silver-plated crock of shit, I have speed test screenshots to prove that this company is lying and tried to take my money. Anyway, stay on top of those subscriptions, folks!

I've been using Movie Pass, a service that's $10 per month and lets you see movies in theaters. Big flicks, multiple viewings of Black Panther, get you one!

I've been cooking dinner at home, having 10-cent oatmeal for breakfast on weekdays, and mostly brought lunch. I'm not completely boring and joyless - I've broken down and bought lunch at work less than 10 times this year. It's that...there's just...there's an Indian buffet 3 minutes away!

Hosting friends instead of going out. Putting that big ass TV and uncomfortable furniture to good use!

I live 20 miles from work and take the express bus instead of driving. People really wrinkle their nose at taking the bus, but the commuter ones are really comfortable, plus I can goof off, read or just look for hot drivers of other cars. The last time I put gas in the car, frat boys and sorority girls were puking green beer in celebration of a dude who got rid of snakes!

To tack onto living so far away from work: Seattle rent sucks, the apartments are old and small, and it's loud as hell. Sure, there's a 10-minute walk on both sides of the trip, and the rent is a lot more affordable, $800 for a 700 sq ft apartment. In the city are $1000 150 sq ft micro studios without kitchens! Lots of people are gearing up to move: factor transportation into your rent and see if the next neighborhood away could ease your financial burden.

2.50 per month for my phone. I read books and listen to music in my spare time outside of home, neither of which need a $40 data plan.

I sound like a broken record because these are habits 4 years in the making. Anyone can do it, especially if you start with one change at a time. Start with cutting out the Starbucks and making your own drinks...those people don't pay their taxes, anyway!

Gaming in Ape-ril: DKC and other titles

It's been a while, Folks! Working, studying and attending one of my closest friends' wedding were all priorities over the last 5 weeks. I also saw Ready Player One and am now halfway through the book. It's nice to see one of the shallowest things about the movie get addressed in the first 10 pages of the book, and I like that both formats give an awesome context for the pop culture miasma. See it, read it!

You can bet that I put in some work on the SNES mini, putting 40 hours into completing Final Fantasy 6. My memory of the game had as many stories as playable characters, and going through it again showed me that the story still spends more than half its time with Terra, the human-Esper hybrid and the fate of a world that tries to suppress magic for the good of humanity. I skipped a few sidequests, and completed the game around level 60, only having put about 6 hours into endgame grinding. The old me would have maxed everyone out and spent 80 hours completing the game from memory, but time is more valuable these days.

Besides, as this entry is titled, I had a hankering to play Donkey Kong Country. The first handful of levels are super fun, bouncing around and being shot out of barrels and then the difficulty hits like a freight train. There's a mine cart level that's not really about reflexes so much as memorizing enemy patterns, and that's about when I started to check out. It might take a week to scrape off some salt and try again, but boy did it suck for all the fun to stop so quickly.

Yep...

Ohh well, at least I have 20 days to enjoy another bullshit Overwatch limited event. I call BS just because the loot usually gets locked away for an entire year before you get another chance at it. The events themselves are usually decently thought out, in all fairness. 

I mostly scratched the FPS itch via StarWars Battlefront 2, which revamped their progression system yet again. This iteration, where the classes and characters you use level up as you use them, and you can choose which skills to upgrade, is how the game should have worked from the get-go. They added some heroes and levels, and the only complaint is that the CTF mode where you have jetpacks is awful on Bespin. Bespin, a city in the clouds, has lots of places to fall off the map, and this is terrible because there's no air control with said jetpack. There are also issues with the flag spawning, and not being marked properly, so when it's picked up, the icon stays in the center of the map. I already hate this map, but it doesn't even work properly to boot! The result is that this map takes easily triple the amount of time to finish, and this is not a good thing.

Griping aside, I started playing the mother of all FPS games: Metroid Prime. This is the first time the game went 3D, and Nintendo and Retro Studios handled it gracefully. The graphics at the time were great, the soundtrack is incredible with just the right amount of remixes, and the environmental design is perfect. Moreover, Metroid Prime is an action game with a clever collectible system. You'll spend 20% of the game in a scan visor that allows you to glean combat strategies, read up on the game's lore, and most importantly allows you to explore the story at your own pace. When using your scan visor, your targets are orange and red. Red targets are vital information and switches, while orange are the background info and narrative, which is about anything from the native population's reaction to being invaded, the colonizer's difficulties with a mysterious (badass) bounty hunter, and their screwed up experiments with alien technology. My only drawback is the controls, which force you to use the Wiimote and nunchuck. This would be much better if the physical bar could mount my TV and stay in place. The controller itself mimics Samus' right-hand cannon and adds to the experience of the most immersive game I've ever enjoyed. However, nothing breaks this like this stupid device falling off your TV and Samus reacting by spinning in a circle while you cuss the engineers for using porous plastic and expecting tape to stick to it.