For sharing with your folks, grandma, whoever.

Something I haven’t heard discussed on any of the news pieces regarding The Great Tax Rebate of ’08 is what it means for folks who don’t file taxes: specifically those retired and collecting income from Social Security. Rebates are being sent to those who filed taxes in 2007…so if you’re retired, you’re SOL?

Not so! “Many people who receive Social Security benefits are not required to file a tax return. But they need to this year to get the stimulus payment. Many can use the simpler Form 1040A. ”

In other words, call your momanem and let them know to either call the IRS @ 800-829-1040 or be a peach and go download the form for them (and help them fill it out).

Dear fellow Atlantan’s. I’ve missed you. Been on assignment out of town, state, country for far to long. Home soon.

While on said assignments, I’ve received updates from HQ on things going on in ATL. This one was too rich to pass up a post. Please see the following two headlines:

[Georgia] State lawmakers seek to move part of Georgia’s border one mile north into Tennessee.
Georgia wants to move the entire border northward by more than a mile along a line from just west of Lookout Mountain to near McCaysville, Ga. That appropriation (or land grab) of more than 50 square miles would transform longstanding relationships along one of America’s fuzziest stretches of border.

Chattanooga Sending Truck Load Of Water To Atlanta
The city of Chattanooga, facing a possible Georgia land grab as part of an effort to get access to the Tennessee River, is sending a truck load of bottled water to Atlanta.

The best way to settle this is to challenge any football team in Tennessee to play the Georgia Bulldogs. If we win, we get the whole river. If we lose, we give Tennessee, Stone Mountain. Let’s see ’em move that.

This is where I am now. Help me explain this to them as I’m tired of the laughter. (Folks, I’m really tired of it)

WTF?

XO, Stevie.

sabrina wrote about this back in 06 (god has it been that long? we started writing at the same time) but since i had an opportunity to see it this weekend i thought i’d go ahead a throw a plug out as well.

i had the opportunity to see sketchworks, the decatur-based sketch comedy troupe, perform their two act show, sketchablanca, this weekend and it was damn good.

it’s sketch comedy, so think live saturday night live, with some video interspersed throughout to allow for set changes. this weekend’s primarily dealt with relationship issues and included several memorable scenes including a husband and wife who can’t stop yelling at each other, a hillarious ches date with voice-overs, come riotous personal ads, and my favorite, “good cop, penguin.” trust me.

anyway, it was great two hours, we laughed our asses of and i highly recommend it. if you missed it there is a bonus show added on march 1.

also you can check out the rest of the rest of the schedule and catch the next one….it’s worth it.

No, I don’t have a review either, I just wanted to highlight Maxim Magazine‘s douchebaggery.

Give ’em Hell, Robinson Bros.!

And when Paste Magazine gets around to posting their interview/review (from the most recent issue) I’ll link it here.

photo courtesy of Colin Mutchler

the 14th street bridge project is the gift that keeps on giving.

beginning this weekend and also on the next two weekends after the atlanta police will be ‘pacing’ traffic on the downtown connector so that georgia power can relocate equipment around the new bridge (details available on the 14th street project site.)

basically for about 15 minutes every hour from 7 am for the next ten hours the police will be slowing traffic to 20 mph and blocking off any new traffic from getting onto the downtown connector. i have gotten caught in this pacing once before and it is an unmitigated traffic disaster.

gdot suggests you give 511 a call before you head out. i suggest you take surface streets if you need to move north/south through the city.

or maybe this is the time for you to finally give something else a try.

photo courtesy of joelogon

here is something to pass along in case you are interested.

levy restaurants, who handles catering for the dome, phillips arena and the atlanta motor speedway will be introducing brunswick stew at the ams during the nascar race over the march 5-7 weekend.

to celebrate this, they are having a brunswick stew contest. it’s pretty simple, just email your recipe for brunswick stew to stewrecipes@levyrestaraunts and they will pick five finalists.

the finalists will be judged on the infield of the atlanta motor speedway on march 7.

winner gets a whole host of prizes including two club one seat for the sunday races, which are worth a little over a grand….

this post being brought to you by my dog, carter. yes, the dog to the right, who also refuses to use caps –

hi!

one of the nice things about my owner having this little blog-platform here is that i can give a shameless shout out to a business that i think is doing an especially good job and should be rewarded with your dollars if you care to.

so let me give a huge plug to all my friends at the east atlanta animal clinic, absolutely the best vet office in the whole wide world.

just a few thoughts on why i love them so much –

-when james adopted me and my sister at one year old we had some aggression issues with strangers. he was super-worred about taking us to the vet. in fact he was scared we were going to bite the vet. the staff at east atlanta made us feel comfortable in 15 seconds in fact they had me rolled on the floor wagging my tail while they took blood from me
-speaking of the staff, my owner says the vets are the ‘most competent and nicest he has ever worked with. super good about explaining things, answering questions and detailing the best course of treatment.’ i’m not sure what that means exactly, but that is what he says
-today, my knee was hurting. james was really worried about me and called for an appointment. while booked today, they let him drop me off and they fitted me in when they had some free time. seriously, how amazing is that.

anyway, my sisters and i love the vet and if you live in this neck of the woods and need a vet give them some consideration.

also, if you want to agree with me or give a shout to your vet, the comments are open…..WOOF!

You know since Jane & Ted divorced (and Ted’s been less involved with the Braves, CNN, TBS & AOL/Time Warner) we’ve really missed an Atlantan spouting off and saying something kooky on national television.

But then Jane Fonda was on the Today Show yesterday and gave the world of viral video this gift:

As one commenter suggested, “pimping” is apparently more offensive than “cunt”. I’ll leave that differentiation to you, gentle reader.

this came into us via suggest-a-story and i thought i would put it out there for you. according to archinect, the buckhead branch library may be razed. the building was designed by mack sogin merril elam and is considered something of a marvel in architectural communities.

not all are impressed though. in an ajc article about the potential razing of the library, aaron rents founder and arbiter of all things classy in buckhead, “first class” charlie loudermilk is quoted as saying:

“I see it from my window. I think it’s ugly,” Loudermilk said. “I like brick and limestone, stuff that looks like quality”

(prehaps charlie has something like the black gloss entertainment center from aaron rents in mind. screams quality)

anyway if the library does go, it will be replaced by, you guessed it, a parking garage.

atlanta’s car addiction strikes again.

p.s. – hat tip to the first person to get the author and quote that the title of this post is from

Seems there’s a site for folks who need their traffic delivered via tweets: Commuterfeed.

Here’s the Atlanta feed, which may or not be accurate and dependable.

I guess it’s incumbent on the local Twits who use Twitter to help the cause. YMMV.

Basically all you need to do to contribute is tweet this:

@commuter(SPACE) citycode(SPACE) incident, where citycode is our airport designation, ATL.

I figure this is reasonably interesting (I use Twitter) since james loves to blog Marta and a fair amount of folks chimed in on the Techwood drive closing.

We’d love to hear from you though. Do you use Twitter? Would you contribute or trust this information?

[Via Lifehacker]