And now the Muppets are here to do a much better job than I could to wish each and every one of you a very Happy 4th of July!!
del.icio.us: The Muppets,Fourth of July
Friday, July 04, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Animusic!
One of my young friends from karate recently added a video from Animusic to his profile on Facebook. Seeing it again just brought back my memories of enjoying seeing it for the first time, and being absolutely spellbound by the beauty of the music itself, and the mind-bending intricacy of the imaginary instruments that were created to bring it to life. Its a real labor of love with a fascinating story behind that I would recommend to anyone of any age.
Wikipedia Entry: Animusic
IMDB Entry: Animusic
Finally, and most importantly: a clip from YouTube of what is undoubtedly the most famous composition from Animusic. Its called Pipe Dream and I hope you enjoy it!
Till next time, keep it intelligent...
Thursday, June 05, 2008
This kid is Da Shiznit...
Right. So, my return to blogging hasn't been going so well. Thanks for noticing. :-) What's a guy to do to make up for it? Post a damn funny video, that's what. A little smattering of R-rated music for this one, but it fits perfectly. Snoop Dogg lays down the soundtrax for "The Don of Ghaz Main", the coolest, baddest little fat kid in Iraq.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Could life get any busier? Uh... don't answer that.
Back again after an extended hiatus. My personal and professional life have collided head on with each other and its getting hard to tell the two apart. I'm still at work as I write this even now. *sigh*
I plan on getting back into the swing of things again soon. I have some game reviews to do, and I'm sure I'll have some opinions to share or something of virtually no use to anyone.
For now, this is AI, and as always, keep it intelligent.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Turbo Tax Online using price discrimination?
Greetings. I think I have a bit of an exposé for you tonight, friends. So pay attention.
Its coming down to that time of the year again when we start to think about taxes. W-2s in the mail, 1099s, etc., etc. Last year, I was a very happy user of Turbo Tax Online (Link) and so I decided to go back again and use the service. So I was very surprised when I noticed something very strange. Take a look at the image below. These were captured in two different browsers on the same machine, my machine. I'm running the latest fully patched version of Windows Vista Ultimate.
| Browser: Mozilla Firefox 2.0 | Browser: MS Internet Explorer 7.0 |
Notice anything unusual? Firefox on the left tells me that the cost of Turbo Tax online is $39.95. IE 7 on the right says $25.45! What gives? Is this some weird Microsoft subsidy to the cost of filing my tax return?
Alarmed by this, I decided to do additional tests. Safari lists the prices for me on my machine as $29.95. Furthermore, at my office, my Windows XP machine lists the price in both IE 6 AND Firefox as $29.95!!
So I'm really confused as to what Intuit (Turbo Tax's parent company and maker of Quicken financial management software) are trying to accomplish with this random pricing structure. I couldn't find anything out about it on the website, but I did find a single solitary post about this from last year in the blogosphere! Unfortunately, the author of that post was panned as a faker, but I'm here to tell you that's not the case. The screenshots above are legit.
Anyone out there who wants to double check it can. I'd love to hear what other people are seeing listed as the price. If you comment, please let me know what browser and operating system you're using. Frankly, I don't think its fair for Intuit to price the product differently for different people. I don't think it should matter one bit (especially not on the Web) if you're using IE, Firefox, Vista or XP, or Macs and Safari.
Also, if anyone can find some printed justification from Intuit or acknowledgement that this is real, please pass it on.
Given the inconvenience of switching tax software in mid stream, I will continue for now with Turbo Tax Online, but in the future, I will probably seriously reconsider using them if they continue this sort of unfair pricing structure.
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