Denzel Cosby? Dick Lohan?

If you're looking for a good laugh on this Sunday afternoon, check out the partial face transplant website. FreakingNews.com periodically has photoshop contests, and this particular contest instructs its participants to combine the faces of celebrities and politicians. Either I'm reading the prize wrong, or it's ridiculously tiny. The "jackpot" is 1st place: $5, 2nd place: $3, 3rd place: $2. Pretty weak for a "jackpot." The contest ended back in January and there are 116 submissions - most are pretty funny.

The "new job" series: Introduction

So, you've just started a new job or even a new career and you're overwhelmed by all of the decisions you have to make. Many of them seem rather small, but once you lump them all together, you find you have a daunting task ahead of you. Having just started my career, I thought it would be appropriate to write a series of posts about various "new job" related topics. It's important to keep in mind that I am by no means an expert - I will, however, try to recap some of the research I've done along with my "professional" opinion. Here are some of the topics I'm looking at writing about (I'll add more as I think of them):

• Health benefits
• Retirement planning
• Time management
  
• Upgrading your technology
• Finding the right living space

Hopefully I can offer some insight on these topics, or at the very least, provide some general information to get you started on the right foot. Look for these posts in the coming days as I try to work through my own time management.

The time killer we call work

Sure enough, my first week of work consumed most of my time this past week and I didn't get around to writing a blog post. Don't worry, I don't expect this to become the norm. It's taking me a few days to adjust to waking up at 5:30 am and going to bed fairly early. Work/life balance is an interesting concept that I will hopefully master in the weeks and months to come.

Sunday bits and pieces: Japanese iPod tax, shoe phone, and work tomorrow

I don't have anything big to write about today, so I think I will take a "bits and pieces" approach when this happens.

• Since 2005, the Japanese government has been pushing for an "iPod tax" - a tax of 1-3% on the price of media players. Recently, this tax proposal was permanently shut down. The idea behind a tax like this is that the government is trying to make up for lost tax revenue due to music and other media piracy. I understand a tax like this, but in terms of simple economics, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Either media players become more expensive for consumers and they buy less, or manufacturers are forced to lower the price a bit to compensate for the tax, resulting in reduced profits. Either way, this cuts into both sales tax and corporate income tax revenue that the government receives. Ultimately, I think this really just moves the money from one pocket to the other, doing nothing but angering consumers and/or media player manufacturers.
  

• As a kid, Get Smart was one of my all-time favorite TV shows (I'm young, so I was obviously watching reruns on Nick-at-Nite). The recent movie was funny, but I don't know if it really did the original show justice. The shoe phone seemed like a ridiculous gadget, but apparently it exists (if only in a Berlin museum).

• I'm starting work tomorrow downtown. Time to really see what the world of tax is all about.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

The best of Craigslist

The best of Craigslist is one of the funnier things I've read recently, with all sorts off funny, quirky, and often disturbing listings. To highlight a few:

• Black cat with white stripes: This individual was kind enough to rescue a "cat."

• All aboard the cat bus.
  

• This is what happens when you spend too much time on the computer. Maybe he should contact this person. And what the hell is vacuum kissing? That sounds scary and maybe dangerous.
  

• What's worse than a drunk dial? Drunk posting on Craigslist.

There are hundreds of other "best of Craigslist" posts - a lot of them really aren't that funny, but they're fun to kill time with if you're bored.

A tale of two cities

Benjamin Franklin once said, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." For most people, this is a pretty morbid reality, but as a tax professional, it offers me job security. As true as that may be, I'd still like hold onto as much money as I can from what I earn.

Recently, I was on vacation in Nevada and spent a little time in Las Vegas. I've always found it interesting how two places (Las Vegas and Chicago) separated only by four states and 1,700 miles could have such drastically different local tax systems. As of November 2008, Chicago (Cook County) will have the nation's highest sales tax rate at 10.25%. It boggles my mind that when I shop in Chicago, I will actually be paying over 10% more than the price listed on a given piece of merchandise. Additionally, Illinois has a flat state income tax of 3%. Therefore, if you're in the 33% federal income tax bracket, you'll find yourself paying out 33% + 3% = 36% of your income in taxes. Then, with your remaining 64% of income, you'll be taxed an additional 10.25% on anything you buy in Chicago. Very exciting stuff - and I'm not even going to go into property taxes and various other taxes that many people face.

Las Vegas paints a very different picture. The sales tax in Vegas (Clark County) is only 7.75% and there is NO state income tax. On the surface, it seems like residents and visitors of Las Vegas get off easy and the local government is barely scraping by. The "tax" that most people forget about is the unofficial one known as gambling revenue. Las Vegas might be one of the only places in the world where tourists pay the residents' taxes as they come from thousands of miles away to empty their pockets on blackjack tables and in slot machines.

What's the bottom line here? If you're a gambling addict from Chicago, you're probably paying for Illinois/Chicago's taxes, and Las Vegas' taxes as well. Good job.

Sweet Tomatoes and other food related notes

I really didn't intend on having this blog become a source of restaurant reviews, but until I make a Chicagoland restaurant review blog (if I do), there may be some reviews popping up from time to time [EDIT: I have created a restaurant review blog, Tasting Chicago]. I love trying new food and restaurants, so it seems like a logical move to review my experiences.

Tonight I tried Sweet Tomatoes in Glenview (IL) and was overall impressed with my experience. If you've never heard of this chain before, it's a soup/salad/bakery all-you-can-eat buffet with a variety of soup and salad choices. While I wish I could say that this is always a good healthy choice , it has several less healthy options like pizza focaccia bread, fresh baked chocolate chip cookies (among other baked goods), and various pasta dishes.

I arrived to find a rather crowded atmosphere with a short wait to be seated (about 10 minutes). It's structured so that you build your salad (or choose an already made salad) before paying and being seated. After you're seated, you can look around and get whatever else you want. My asian chicken salad was decent, although the chicken pieces were small. The pizza focaccia bread was much better. My favorite part of the dinner had to be the cornbread with honey butter and the chocolate chip cookies. All of these baked items were very fresh and you could tell that they were baked minutes earlier. In addition to these items, I tried a mexican meatball soup that was a bit on the spicy side, but very delicious. It was one of eight varieties of soup. For dessert, I had fat free chocolate frozen yogurt (they also had vanilla) with crushed peanuts on top. It wasn't anything special, but it satisfied my dessert craving.

All in all, for $9.99, it was a very good meal. I usually set my standards low when it comes to all-you-can-eat buffet style restaurants, so Sweet Tomatoes fell above my expectations. If you're feeling carnivorous, you may want to look elsewhere. Check out their locations and menu if you're interested.

Rating (out of 10): 7