Daily Scribble

You know when it is really hot

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When I was in Bangalore, my friend showed me around the town.  Now, he is visiting Vancouver, it’s my turn to show him around.  I don’t want to taking him to the typical tourist traps.  I have been to those places too many times.  There is one tourist attraction in Vancouver I won’t mind going back again and again, that is the ice-cream shop with 218 difference flavors of ice-cream.  This afternoon in the office, I asked around and see who else wants to have some ice-cream after work.  Two other friends who have heard about this place many times but having get the chance to taste it also interested to come along.  My Indian friend tried the curry and chai tea ice-cream, and complains that doesn’t taste right.  At the end he settle for a more traditional flavor, butter scotch.

After having the ice-cream, we are still hungry, so we decided to have dinner together.  I want to bring Vikram to a restaurant that he don’t have one in India.  One of my friend suggested all you can eat Chinese hot-pot, what a good idea.  So I took them to the hot-pot restaurant I usually go.  As you know, in a hot-pot place, other than ordering the soup base and dishes, you have to order your dipping sauce.  In the menu, they have the normal sauces and the house special spicy sauce.  My Indian friend instinctly want to have the spicy sauce and my two other friends, one is a white guy and the other is also Indian but grew up in Canada, follows. When we made the ordered, the waitress warned the white guy the spicy sauce is really hot.  My friend complained that the waitress discriminate against white guys because she didn’t warn my other two Indian friends.  He ignored the warning and told her to bring it on.  My Indian friends almost made fun of the stereotype that white guys can’t take spicy food.

After a while, the hotpot, the dishes and the spicy sauce came.  The white guy first tried the sauce.  The moment he put the sauce into his month, he drank the whole glass of ice water to chill the heat.  The sauce is too spicy for him.  My two Indian friends were laughing at him.  Then the Indian guy grew up in Canada try the sauce.  He got the same reaction and complains his tongue is burning.  The real Indian guy laughed at him saying that he has no taste for the spice.  Finally, it’s my Indian friend’s turn to try the spicy sauce.  Guess what, the sauce is too hot for him!  You know when it is really hot, if an Indian thinks the spice too hot.

Daily Scribble

Tax return

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April is the time to file the tax return.  This year’s tax return is a little difference than last year’s.  My status in the file has changed from single to married.  In the point of view of Revenue Canada, nothing much is changed.  We still have to file two seperate tax return instead of a common couple return.  The only benefits is I can transfer some unused tax credit from Pat under my return.  I have a higher marginal tax rate so it is better to claim the credit under my name so we can get more refund.

Support in Quick Tax for marriage couple is pretty good.  I can file two return under the same file and the software will take care of copying the required information between the two sets of forms.  It also has some tips on how to optimize the refund between the couple.  It is almost perfect except it is missing one feature.  I can’t merge the data from last year’s tax return for both of us.  I can only transfer last year’s data from one file and have to mannually enter the data for the other one.

Last year, my company changed the medical insurance coverage from 100% to 80%.  I didn’t realize I can claim tax credit for the remaining 20%, so I didn’t keep the recipts.  Damn… I could have get back ten or twenty bucks more from the government.  Next year, I have to remind myself to file all my dental and drug recipts.

Daily Scribble

Tagging the old posts

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I am tagging all my previous blog entries.  It is a long, tedious, yet rewarding process.  Reading my old writings is like having time machine to the past.  I am surprise by how I thought 4-5 years ago.  I can tell something about me has changed and some other things never change.  One thing that changes is my writing was really poor back then.  I made lots of spelling mistakes.  That was before Firefox comes with the spell checker feature.  I guess Firefox really really helps me a lot in using the right word.

I can’t tag too many post in one day before I get bored and lost my patient.  I can tag at most one month worth of blog entries a day while I am watching TV.  I already finish tagging all entries newer than 2008.  I am now working my way up starting form the first entry in 2005.  With the current rate of tagging, it will take me a month to tag all the posts.  There is no hurry to get all the posts tagged, I can take my time and enjoy the time passage to the past.