“You’re supposed to know when your taxes are due.”
With those delicious words, Yewsenia at Riverside County Teasurer’s Office explained why they only mailed one notice for taxes due in December and April.
If you were stupid enough to forget the second set of taxes — the April one — they’d remind you in June with a notice adding a 10% “penalty.”
To my brain, it looks like a brilliant scheme to rip their home owners out of extra monies.
When I complained about the lack of notices, I was officially told to go pound sand.
My friend said “Welcome to socialist California.” He’s wrong. That practice is very capitalistic, and brilliant, to boot.
The moral of this story: Pay all your real estate taxes in one go upfront. Don’t pay them in installments.
Is Microsoft harassing you to “upgrade” to Windows 10?
1. Don’t answer the pop-up box. Hit the X in the top right hand corner of the box and close the box.
2. My computer whiz tells me:
I use a program called GWX Control Panel, by Josh Mayfield, http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/
It prevent Windows 10 from installing and blocks it and its files from inhabiting my customers’ computers. You may have to run the program after a Windows Update as Microsoft can re-inject the Windows 10 install files back onto the computer.
GWX Control Panel is a very comprehensive program that should keep Windows 10 off your PC.
Mary Meeker’s most important slides.
Remember Mary Meeker’s 219page Internet slide deck I instanced several days ago? Click here. Here is my take on her most interesting slides. If you can’t see the entire slide, click on it.
About the only investment tip I got out of Meeker’s slides was Facebook (FB). Look at how much faster it’s growing than Google or the others.
Amazing fact: I have friends who own businesses, which sell things, but don’t have a web site. WIX.com is probably the easiest cheapest way for Blind Freddie –i.e. anyone without technical savy — to create their own attractive web site.
Country mice revisited. My son Michael, the punster, says “You’re running a real mice Airbnb there…”
To repeat, these are the condensers in my back yard:
My field mice made their mice AirBnB inside the top of each of the condensers. Here’s an inside peek at one:
Once this nest is cleaned out with a shop-vac and the chewed wires re-connected, there are five long-term solutions:
1. Turn off power to machines. The power keeps the circuit boards warm during the winter and attracts the mice. The big nice nest adjoins the warm circuit boards.
2. A barn cat. The best solution.
3. Cotton balls impregnated with essential mint/peppermint oil and stuffed among the wires.
4. Spray essential mint oil everywhere regularly. Amazon sells the stuff.
5. In winter, wrap the units in industrial-grade plastic wrap — like the stuff they use at airports to wrap around flimsy suitcases and large packages. Check the packages regularly for mice breaches.
Do not use mouse-traps baited with peanut butter. They will attract and kill zillions of mice. But that’s not what you want. You want to deter.
How to avoid speeding tickets:
1. Stay within ten miles an hour of the limit.
2. Drive with cruise control.
3. Use WAZE to alart you to police.
Harry Newton, who asks to be woken up when this awe-uninspiring election is over.
How many dollars is $400MM ?
hmmm, if only we had a gadget that could remind us to do important things as they come up….
oh yeah, that smartphone you carry around everywhere you go can remind you to pay important bills. who’dve thunk it can do more than just Facebook and let you play angry birds.
I could not see the right hand side of your charts. You had them enlarged too big.
Could you resend them in a smaller chart.
Thanks, Mary
click on them.
I thought it was just me. I am using my iPhone.
What CA does is send out automobile registration bills 4 months early. Who pays a yearly bill 4 months in advance? What happens is the bill gets buried on a desk or drawer and next thing you know you’re paying late registration fees!
I work with 17 – 18 year olds. They would be mortified to be found on Facebook. The only growth area for FB is age 50+ females. Facebook too will follow the famous Gartner “Hype Curve” curve and become a “part of everything”. In other words, not hot, but ho hum. FB is falling off the curve. You are actually getting resistance to adoption that is more than the old resistance to change. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3114217
I bought the Facebook IPO – against Harry’s advice – at $38. I’ve quadrupled my money in just a couple of years. I am retiring next week at age 52 mostly due to the several million dollars I’ve made from FB stock. You are wrong. And to those people who cannot afford to retire because they listened to Harry, I feel for you, I truly do.