BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Pizza boxes were piled on the island in the kitchen. They were empty, and what little remnants of the various “flavors” of Italian-American dinner pie… Well… Lunch and Breakfast Pie for that matter… But, I slobber as I digress. Fitting I suppose, given the title. But back to the story at hand…

…what little remnants of the various “flavors” of Italian-American dinner pie that were left had been tossed into a Tupperware container and stuffed into the icebox for later. At the moment, there was still work to be done.

You see, before I started blogging to keep folks up to date on my whereabouts and nefarious deeds, I had an e-newsletter. While I don’t regularly send one out any longer, I do use the list for announcements and the like. And, prior to establishing the e-newsletter, I had a good old-fashioned paper newsletter. I even have an 11×17 paper folder in my basement. Anybody know someone interested in buying it?

There I go, digressing again…

Let’s continue… AND, before THAT, my newsletter was on 8.5 x 11 paper, and stuffed into envelopes. So, when you have 2000 plus newsletters to stuff into envelopes in order to send them out to fans and bookstores, and you barely have enough money to print the newsletter to begin with, what do you do? Well, you don’t hire a mailing service, that’s for sure. You hire your friends. You buy pizza and beer, invite them over, and make them fold for their supper…

Or, in my case, I join them in the folding while E K strolls back and forth, occasionally slapping us with her riding crop and screaming, “FASTER LACKEYS!” as she makes us ALL work for our supper – which, of course, is primarily the leftover pizza crust from her plate that she tosses to us as we grovel at her feet.

Think I’m kidding? Two words: Evil Redhead.

But anyway… There we were, “Mentos”, The Chunk Man, E K, me, and even the o-spring, sitting around the dining room table with plastic milk crates of newsletters and boxes of envelopes and rolls of stamps. We had ourselves a regular assembly line going.

The Chunkster and E K were on folding duty, because they are both insanely meticulous about such. Mentos and I were stuffing the pre-printed envelopes, and I was pulling double duty putting the stamps on them as well. I really didn’t have much choice. E K kept kicking me under the table.

Anywho, the o-spring was all of about 4 at the time, which meant she was all about helping. For some reason that changes when they hit the tween/teen years. However, that’s now and this was then… So, back then, she was all about helping, and what she really wanted to do was lick the envelopes and seal them.

Okay, all good. She’s pretty meticulous too, so once she was shown the process, there was no worry about her slobbering on them or anything.

We had been at the project for better than two hours, with only a short break for dinner. Everything was coming together, moving like a well-oiled machine. Then, it happened… The end of the line started slowing down. By that, I mean the o-spring was no longer sealing envelopes. In fact, she was sitting in her chair with a bizarre look on her face as she smacked her lips.

My first thought was that she had given herself a paper-cut. I’ve done the same on envelopes when not paying attention. But there was no apparent blood and she wasn’t crying. Just seemingly perplexed.

E K turned to her and said, “Why did you stop? What’s wrong?”

The o-spring smacked her lips a couple of more times, then said without missing a beat, “I’m all out of tongue water.”

Creative descriptions… I guess that’s what happens when one of your parents is a writer.

More to come…

Murv

The stretch of the “Information Superhighway” that runs through Missouri is riddled with potholes, and I managed to find a really big one. I wasn’t looking for it… Well, not on purpose. I was simply trying to merge into the center lane. Not even the fast lane mind you, just the center lane, and whomp, there it was. I big ol’ information pothole with Missouri State Government written all over it. I don’t know why, but I didn’t even try to put on the brakes. I just kept on going and fell right into the gaping abyss with countless other poor bastards (and bastardettes) who make the Show-Me state their home.

Now, in defense of the “Big MO,” I have to admit that it lived up to its motto. By that I mean it showed me – in spades – why people in other parts of the country think we are a bunch of barefoot cousin marryin’, nose-pickin’, backward idiots who can’t keep up. You see, it seems our very own government is the model upon which this assumption is based, and I hate to say it, but if I was on the outside looking in I would surmise the very same thing.

Allow me to explain…

Those of you who follow my exploits on Facebook are probably already aware that I have been lamenting some issues with renewing my license plates. This should be a relatively easy task, right? Well, sort of. If you’ve read some of my previous blogs you might remember my story about renewing my Driver’s License. In a nutshell, the majority of the licensing offices in our state are actually commodities. By that, I mean they are privately owned and the permit to own and run one of these establishments was obtained by back-scratching a political candidate. Fair enough. Corruption runs rampant everywhere, why not here? The thing is, these privately owned offices tend to employ some of the rudest people on the planet. (For more detailed accounting of what I mean see It Ain’t Rocket Science…)

For that very reason, and those outlined in the referenced blog entry, I make it a point to avoid going to the licensing office unless my hair is on fire and no one else is around to help me put it out. But, let’s get back to the latest gargantuan pothole…

Missouri, like many – if not all – other states offers the ability to renew your license plates online. Please make note, I said offers. As I discovered, offering this service and actually providing it are two different things. My journey toward said enlightenment, and the resulting plummet toward the bottom of the abyss, began innocently enough. I received my notice, procured my inspections and personal property tax receipts, then surfed over to the site and attempted to renew my plates. Everything was fine right up until I hit continue. It seems the system was unable to verify the fact that I had paid my 2009 Saint Louis County Personal Property Taxes on my vehicle. (For those of you unfamiliar with such, in Missouri we are taxed on EVERYTHING. Think I’m kidding? Live here for a year and find out.)

I tried again. Then again. I waited a day and tried again. For a week I tried daily to renew my plates, but to no avail as I always received the very same error message.

This is when I discovered, and ultimately fell into, the gaping maw of the pothole from hell. What follows here are the email exchanges I had with both the Sate of Missouri and the Assessor’s Office for Saint Louis County. Per the notices on the bottom of their emails I am technically violating some obscure law by making these transcripts public. I guess we’ll see if SWAT surrounds my house and starts tossing teargas through the windows.

(Rather than retype the messages here I am simply providing the images – click on each to enlarge…)

My Email To The County Assessor

The Assessor’s Reply

Me Email To The State

The State’s Reply

My Reply To The State

The State’s Reply To My Reply

My Query To The Assessor Complete With Forwarded Email From The State Attached.

The Final Reply

And there you have it. A pothole the size of Rhode Island, right here in the middle of Missouri’s stretch of the information superhighway. Let’s completely ignore the fact that it is obvious that neither the State nor the County have any clue whatsoever how their own system works. That’s not at all surprising. Instead, simply look at the disparity in the technology.

Using the account number and license plate number – something that you type into the online renewal site – I can pull up my paid personal property tax receipt on the screen. 2 seconds, all done. HOWEVER, it appears that the State is incapable of doing so. Apparently they have to have a CD-ROM sent to them monthly, which then must be copied into their database.

I have to wonder exactly how much all that is costing taxpayers…

Just in case the State – or County, for that matter – happens across this blog, I’d like to let them in on a secret. As it happens, I know at least a half dozen kids at my daughter’s elementary school who can write them a few lines of code and redirect the necessary ports on their routers to make this all seamless, instantaneous, and probably even more secure than it is at present. No CD’s necessary. No extra work. Fewer annoyed and frustrated Missourians.

What’s more, they’d probably do it for a pizza and a juice box. Just think of all the money you could save.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pack a lunch so I can go stand in line all day at the license office. I’d probably better take a handful of Valium too. That way I might be able to refrain from bitch slapping any of the idiots behind the counter…

More to come…

Murv