Happy Fourth of July!

Yes, I know it's actually the fifth of July, but today is the holiday from my day job, so it's fourth of July observed. Any reason to be off work is a good reason to celebrate. I used part of my weekend to catch up on tv and part to reduce my taxes and the rest to work. The reducing taxes was the fun part. See, since I have a day job, when I make money writing, it's taxed at a fairly high amount, plus I pay self-employment tax, so what it boils down to is that about 40% of everything I make writing goes straight to the IRS. Sucks, right? Especially when you all know how hard it is to write. So ever once and a while, I get all sideways about it and decide to make a business purchase. I figure if I'm going to work 80-100 hours a week then I ought to have the very best equipment to do it.

So this weekend, I bought a Nook. Now, I have an ereader, but it's the first generation Sony and of course, does not compare to current technology. And it's old and VERY well used, so it fritzes every now and then. The price on the ereaders has seriously dropped. My Sony was $350 new but I just bought a touch-screen Nook with 3G for $199. The discounts on ereader books will actually pay for the ereader in a matter of months at the rate I order books. Not saying I actually get around to reading them all, but isn't it cool that if you want a book, you never have to leave you couch to get it?

So I figure that my "real" cost for the reader was $120 given that I saved $80 in taxes by buying it. And hey, I'm a woman, so it's not about how much you spend but how much you save. :)

For the television crew, I'm caught up on all my reality shows and have to say that I don't like anyone on Hell's Kitchen this year (at least not yet) and think the dancing quality on So You Think You Can Dance is through the roof amazing. I'm going to leave you with this video of a special performance by a guy who auditioned for SYTYCD a couple of years ago, but due to his disability (scoliosis) is unable to perform the partner dancing, but does a robot dance that is incredible. After his audition, he found two other guys and started a dance crew. They got a guest performance on the show and it's really incredible. FYI - Bryan is the little guy in the middle.

Click here to view.

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Have a great week!

Deadly DeLeon