Taxes: Half Done

Between the replay of the Australian Open men's singles final and the Super Bowl yesterday, I did my income taxes. (My tax situation is pretty simple, although I came close to having enough fan-related expenses to justify itemizing deductions. If I'd known that, I would have kept better records of my driving; the travel to Denver alone would have been worthwhile, even at only 14 cents/mile.) Electronic filing is included with TurboTax, but only for the Federal return. I'm not going to pay a $20 e-filing fee for the state refund, especially as the state of California is so broke that the Controller has announced a delay in paying refunds. Why should I spend money to get the information to them sooner? OTOH, because paper returns have to be signed and Lisa is in Oregon, I won't be able to file the paper return until late this month when I go up to Oregon for a couple of weeks. Oh, well, it's not a lot of money, and who knows whether the state will ever pay it anyway?

Hugo Recommendation Nights Resume

Tonight is the second of BASFA's three Hugo Award Recommendation nights. After the regular meeting, members who are interested are urged to stick around to discuss recommendations for the following 2009 Hugo Award categories:

Best Professional Artist
Best Editor, Short Form
Best Editor, Long Form
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Best Graphic Story

I will also have the recommendation sheets from our past meeting, so people can add additional things or add their names to other people's recommendations, and the blanks for next week's meeting, so those who won't be here next week can add things now.

If you are not yet a member of Anticipation and were not a member of Denvention Three, it's too late for you to actually nominate for this year's Hugo Awards, but that doesn't mean you can't help BASFA make recommendations.

Just to be clear, what we're doing is not the Hugo Award nominations themselves -- every individual who is eligible to vote must cast his/her own ballot -- but our club's recommendations as to works/people we consider worthy of a Hugo Award nomination this year.