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My "Bug the IRS" link works! Here is what it just told me.

We have received your tax return and it is being processed. Unless we find mistakes or you owe other taxes, you should receive your refund by May 23, 2006.

So there. I should have my overpayment back in short order. I am thinking of using the money to invest in telescope futures.

Speaking of overpayments, I have an update with the ongoing WAR ON COMCAST! Comcast is my former cable company. On August 12, 2004 Hurricane Charlie hit Florida TWICE in the same day. The first landfall location was the Dry Tortugas (a group of islands 75 miles off the coast of Key West, consisting of a National Park and an old fort. Nobody lives there). 22 hours later on the same day it hit the Punta Gorda / Port Charlotte area.

Being the good citizen that I am (and not having a real job at the time) I quickly enlisted with the Red Cross and set off across the state in a 16 foot box truck. The Red Cross paid for the truck, but they needed slave drivers that would work for food.

But right before I left, lightning struck something near the house. The cable instantly went out, along with my VCR, a shortwave radio, and older laptop computer, and some other stuff. The strike was close. I figured out that the cable drop going to the house was toast.

While I was off being a person of good social responsibility, the EVIL MINION from Comcast came to the house and fed a line of bullshit to my mother about Dade County ordering the cable cut off because a leak was causing interference to air traffic control at Miami International Airport, and that she needed to PAY THE ASSHOLE a couple of hundred bucks to "re-do the cable run inside the house". I told her over the phone to do no such thing.

When I got home, I went to the cable company office and asked a twit working there if the county really ordered the cable cut off because of a leak causing problems for MIA. The woman said that it was true. At this point, I told her she was not only full of shit, but a liar to boot. The cable went off in a lightning storm - and I know for a fact that nobody is going to climb a utility pole in a storm. I wanted to know why I was being lied to, and when they were going to send out an honest technician who would replace the drop without trying to rip anyone off. I told them I plugged a small TV directly into the drop and the feed was shot - my inside wires were fine - and if they were fried as well I could replace them.

They said that I would have to pay a re-connect fee (insisting that they had disconnected the cable, not the bolt of lightning). So I told them to just cancel the service and I would go to Best Buy and buy DirecTV stuff. They told me that there would be a disconnect fee and there was a balance due. I asked why the disconnect fee? You already said you disconnected the cable! Another lie was exposed, and I pointed this out to the twit. On my way out of the office I warned some other people there to request digital cable service to just walk out now.

I had thought the war was over. But no. There was to be another battle, and another victory.

It seems that my dad had set up automatic bill payment for the cable service. So when I "fired" Comcast, they kept getting paid - while the service was "disconnected". And we also had the Comcast cable box. The DirecTV service was in my name.

Eventually, the bank payments stopped going to Comcast. But they had the money. Last week my dad got a letter from Comcast informing him that he owed $80 for the cable box he still had, and that Comcast had a $210 overpayment refund for him.

So today he goes back to the Evil Empire to do more battle. The twit working there again proved to be full of shit, and dumber than The President of the USA. They told him that he owed money for the cable box. But he had the box with him, which he gave to the twit. The twit then said "we have a $210 refund for you, which you will get in the mail". My dad pointed out that he should now get ALL the money back - which amounted to $290.

The twit was confused. So my dad pointed these things out.
1. The thing from Comcast said that they were going to refund him $210 but he owed $80 for the equipment.
2. If he returns the equipment, then he no longer owes $80.
3. Therefore the total refund due is $210 + $80.

Keep in mind that the bill he got from Comcast said that the $80 was already subtracted from the refund, and that the $210 was the remaining balance - AFTER 1.5 years have passed.

The twit insisted that her math was correct. So my dad asked for the box back. She gave it back.

OK, now I have the box, for which I owe you $80 for, right? Now I am going to give it back - therefore I no longer owe you anything right? Now what is my refund again?

The twit said "$210".

OK, so give me back the box. Now how much do you owe me?

The same thing sir, $210.

OK then! I think I will just keep the box. There is no incentive for me to give it back.

This was all too confusing for the twit, so the supervisor twit took over the battle line. My dad ran through the same thing. The supervisor twit said "well if you do not give back the box, you will not get the refund". The supervisor must have thought that they had dropped the atom bomb and ended the war. But the nuke was made in Korea and just like everything else made in Korea it failed to work properly. My dad pointed out that he was already paying $80 for the equipment, so there was no reason to keep the refund. If they wanted the box back, then they had to remove the $80 fee that was deducted from the refund. Otherwise, say good-bye to your precious box because I am going to the county dump when I leave this place.

Now they had a hostage situation to deal with.

Anyway, in the end Comcast got their box back, and my dad will get his full refund. He will not have to pay for equipment that was returned, nor will he have to pay for service that was not used. But he had to call the main office, then have the corporate office call the twits and explain simple things to them.

The war is over, and the evil was vanquished. The ring of power was thrown into the cracks of Mount Doom. All traces of Comcast's evil influence has left, banished to where it originated from. And the DirecTV dish I bolted onto the facia boards is still there, and still working. Even after Hurricane Katrina and Wilma.

Comcast can go sodomize itself with a corn cob. They suck to the 10th power, and I hope that the people responsible for the level of stupidity at the SW 117 ave office get massive, 4 foot long bleeding hemorrhoids - and that all the drug stores in a 50 mile radius run out of Preparation H.