Wednesday evening.

Heh… 404, not found. That’s how I’ll think of this entire wasted part of my life, and I doubt it’ll be just me. Can we all just pretend this last year+ never happened? It’ll be like the “gas leak year” on NBC’s Community, which they used to pretend the two middle seasons never happened.

Ahh, the glamorous life of an expat… The deadline to file Canadian taxes is in nine days, and thus far my company-provided accountants have been replying to my questions with the verbal equivalent of a shruggie emoji. Just in case the bill is on the high side, I tried transferring some money from my online stock account to Canada, only to be told that’s not an option. Moving the money to my US account and then wiring it off to Canada also wouldn’t work, because their wire confirmation system refuses to text Canadian cellphones. (I grudgingly admire their commitment to security.) Driving to the nearest Wells Fargo to arrange that in person (and/or pick up some cash to take to Canada) would also be problematic, seeing as they sold their entire Midwest division to Flagstar in 2018, and the nearest bank is in Philadelphia, an eight-hour drive away.

So, guess who has two thumbs and will slowly siphon his own US checking account through Canadian ATMs? This guy! I’ll probably look like the world’s stupidest criminal if that sets off any red flags. At some point this year, during my big US tour, I’ll have to bring a big old pile of papers to Wells Fargo to get them to wire some cash from myself to myself as if I were some eccentric 19th-century merchant. So much for progress, eh?

On that note, my broker has finally realized that I no longer live in the US (it only took them two years + a Canadian phone number + a Canadian IP address + me explicitly telling them “I no longer live in the US”) and shut down my account, which I’ve had with them since 2007. The good news is that transferring the whole account (main trading as well as the Roth IRA) to a better broker should take just one week. The bad news is that even with the move from the US to Canada (aka the easiest international relocation out there), bureaucrats still can’t quite handle even the most basic stuff. At least I live near the border, and can hypothetically drive out to settle things in person. If my 2018 attempt to move to Australia had been successful, that would’ve been a loooong swim home.

Incidentally, and because this cannot be said enough times: Ally is the worst possible broker you can imagine, and it’ll probably be only a matter of time before they go broke or suffer a catastrophic hack. Rot in hell, Ally. (Seriously, folks, stay away from them: just the fact that they occasionally disable the login page for shits and giggles… Real companies don’t do that.)

One of my Vaccine Hunters buddies, a fellow US infiltrator, told me he got his second doze of Pfizer in Ohio yesterday. (He has family there, so he stayed there the whole three weeks between the shots.) He also said the vaccination center had to shut down early because they feared riots once the verdict in the George Floyd case got announced. (The one where the white cop killed a Black man’s by kneeling on his neck for almost 10 minutes, in the middle of the day and surrounded by many witnesses.) Surprisingly, and hopefully setting a precedent, Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all charges. I can’t recall another time that happened. Of course, even as the case was being deliberated, cops shot and killed more unarmed Black people all over the US… That country has issues. Many, many issues.

Somewhat related, it’s been over 100 days since the attempted coup on January 6th, and only 410 domestic terrorists have been arrested. Based on the size of that mob and all the footage, there were easily thousands of them. That means only a fraction suffered any consequences: there are probably some more in the pipeline, waiting to be identified and/or processed, but that just means most of them will get away with that. And as we already covered, lack of consequences is just an invitation to keep trying… I’m sure they’ll do better on their second try – their third try at the latest. I only hope I’m not in the vicinity when that happens. (Washington DC has some amazing museums. I don’t know when I’ll visit it again, but it’ll happen at some point in the future.)

In more uplifting developments, Simon Rich is a brilliant author: I’ve started reading his Hits and Misses short story collection, and it’s unbelievably well written and funny. I have to pace myself to make the book last longer: he’s got at least eight books out there, but I don’t want to devour them too quickly. Tonight’s high-brow entertainment: Under the Skin, a movie about a mysterious stranger who kidnaps Scottish hitchhikers. The book was excellent, and I hope the move is at least as good.

In covid news, there’s a fascinating new black market industry: fake covid shots. It’s happening all over the world: Poland, Mexico, South Africa, China… In Mexico, they were being distributed out of beach-style beer coolers for $1,000 a pop. In Poland, people were injected with an antiwrinkle compound. (That’s a net positive compared to getting saline solution, but probably not what those folks wanted.) It was only a matter of time before something like this popped up, but still… Taking advantage of the most desperate people in the hardest-hit countries. No bueno, eh. I hope nobody dies as those scammers inject people with whatever is at hand.

To wrap things up, here is an improbably artsy picture I took of my Studio of Solitude before heading out to the experimental vaccine clinic early yesterday morning. The lighting was just too good to miss. Behold, my pigsty in its epic glory!

Good night, y’all. Stay safe.