Posted Friday, February 27, 2004 by Gene

I'm legal again
So, about five or six years ago, I decided I no longer believed in the City of Cambridge's excise tax. This, if you didn't know, is a separate tax they assess based on how many cars you own. The way I saw it was, I don't park on the street, I live on a state highway (and am thus not using a road whose upkeep costs are paid by Cambridge) and I barely drive anywhere IN Cambridge just in general. So why should I get charged?

Oh, also? I kept forgetting to pay them. And really, after you've skipped one and nothing's happened, when you get the next one you think "well, nothing's happened to me SO far, so..."

Then I found out-- last May, around my birthday-- that the Registry of Motor Vehicles wasn't going to be letting me renew my license unless I took care of the excise tax. See, now why didn't they just tell me THAT when they were taping the warrants to my door?

But no big deal. The notice I got indicated I owed the city like a hundred bucks or so. I could deal with that. You know, when I found the time.

So I found the time, during vacation between Christmas and New Year's. (Between May and Christmas, I drove with my expired license and my fingers crossed.) I gave the city a call to ask where to go to take care of the tax, and how much was it again?

The lady on the other end of the line said "are you going to pay ALL of this today?" It was $994.00. Seems the city only told the Registry about a couple of the past due taxes. And, you know, those things come once a year.

So I drove for another two months with my expired license and crossed fingers, until the income tax return came in.

I paid the excise tax last week and then dropped by the registry on Saturday to discover the Watertown RMV stopped their Saturday hours some time in 2002. But, they were open until 7 on Thursdays. Thus, last night I posed for my "hey, I look like a sex offender!" photo, and at last, I am ready once again to be pulled over by a member of law enforcement.

Meanwhile, Ty Law is terribly insulted
Patriots all-star cornerback Ty Law was so insulted by the Patriots' first contract extension offer that he felt moved to discuss the matter with a newspaper reporter. I mean, it was the FIRST OFFER. Of course they were going to lowball him. What the hell was he expecting?

He does realize that a stay in New England might put him in the Hall of Fame, right? That's not going to happen if he goes somewhere else.

A bathroom comment
Okay, they installed these new self-flushing urinals in the men's room here. It's the standard kind, where you step in front of an infrared eyebeam when peeing, and then when you step away the beam recognizes that you're finished and flushes the urinal for you. (Are you eating? Sorry.)

So here's the thing. Every now and then I'll step up to one of these and discover that someone else's pee is in there. What I want to know is, who in the building is so well endowed that they can pee in the urinal without getting close enough to trigger the sensor?