Misfigured Life

It’s November as of this recording, which means Tax Season is right around the corner. Whether you owe money or you’re expecting a refund - you’re definitely annoyed that it isn’t easier, and probably curious why filing your own goddamn taxes isn’t taught in school. 

Taxes blow, and for reasons more frustrating than you might even realize. But we’re gonna figure out how they work, how to do them, and what half that garbage means.

More specifically, we’re gonna cover the difference between W2 and 1099, Itemized vs Standard Deduction, Marginal Tax Rates, Effective Tax Rates, Taxable Income, and how to stick it to Big Tax Prep by filing your federal and state returns for free through their own sites (and not that janky fake free that suddenly costs a bunch of money when you’re halfway through because you drove Uber for a month or want to deduct your student loan interest)

Welcome to - “How To File Your Taxes”  

In light of the American Holiday “Thanksgiving” being next week, we’re gonna set you up for success to be less of a garbage person.

This isn’t my preferred genre of topic - but it’s still a very real concept with tangible steps you can actively take to be better at it. Thankfulness and Happiness are a series of choices - ones you make all day every day without realizing it - and have astonishingly little to do with your situation or environment, despite people seeming to think they do.

If you find yourself missing the good ‘ol days and find yourself perpetually waiting for the days to be good again - that’s because most of us are ungrateful little shits.

The problem is that we’re all the sums of our experiences, and we like to compare shit to other shit. This causes us to compare every single thing in our lives to previous experience, or what we’ve seen, or what we’ve been told could be… And that results in everyone being perpetually disappointed because literally nothing is ever perfect or exactly what you “wish” it would be.

We’re gonna tackle the actions that you can actually do and are proven to increase your gratefulness and overall happiness - we’ll leave all the unproven mystical spiritual placebo effect trash for the birds. We aren’t breakin out the magic crystals and essential oils today, is what I’m saying.

Welcome to - “How To Be More Thankful”  

Marijuana was just legalized in several more states, and I’m guessing there’s a lot of people out there plotting their new careers as pot farmers.

Maybe you’ve already googled it, clicked the first wiki-how article that popped up, and are about to drop a few seeds in a few pots in your living-room and be wildly disappointed by your yield.

Maybe you found an incredibly detailed and pretentious article about the 10 billion possible fuckin nuances to growing marijuana, and you’re plotting out a gangster $1,000 set-up that you’ll not only never buy, but if you did you’d realize that set-up and maintenance requires significantly more time and effort than you ever intended to invest.

Regardless of which kind of stupid you are, we can all agree it’s harder to do decently than everyone initially assumes.  

It’s also incredibly difficult to put your thumb on exactly how much weed you can harvest in what period of time using what equipment, given there really are an outrageous number of variables.

We’re gonna cut through the horseshit, ridiculous generalizations, and unrealistic expectations by laying out every tangible step and consideration to harvest an average of 1oz of marijuana a month in a simple, beginner-friendly, cost-effective indoor soil setup.

Buckle up, because this one is a bit complex.

Welcome to - “How To Grow Marijuana”  

Hello there! We’re back, and it’s time for Season Two of Misfigured Life - comin at you from a new city and a new recording studio. Let’s get to it. 

You want people to stop judging you based on your gross lack of charisma and abrasive personality yeah?

Great. Fortunately for you, humans are hard-wired to dramatically simplify the world around them on autopilot without even realizing it. This provides you, the unlikeable person, with an exceptional opportunity to game the system in your favor.

Today we’re going to make a great first impression. You’re probably a shit person with a shit personality, so the trick is in ensuring the right traits are apparent in the first few moments of meeting someone.

We’ll attempt to structure this so it can theoretically apply to both social and business settings.

Welcome to “How to make a great first impression”  

Today we’re going to learn how to manipulate and condition the behavior of our four-legged companions.

Super well behaved dogs are uncommon - we’re always so surprised and impressed when we see them, and we all pretend they’re just “Really good dogs” - instead of accepting the fact that “Well behaved dogs” are created from years of strategic and consistent hard work and conditioning. Most people simply don’t have the discipline and willpower required to raise their dogs to be extremely well behaved. There’s obviously exceptions to the rule, genetics and personality can influence behavior - but, in most cases, diligent training can overcome those, albeit with greater difficulty.

We’re gonna lay out how to potty train, crate train, socialize, and voice command train a dog. We’ll generally assume we’re talkin about a new puppy, although this can somewhat apply to adult dogs as well. 

Welcome to - “How to Train a Dog”  

Today we’re gonna kill ourselves.   Not literally - fraudulently.

There’s a lot of reasons why people have fabricated their own early demise over the years, from cashing out life-insurance policies, to dodging student loans, avoiding jail time, or even just checking to see if people like them. 

We’re going to plan and lay out the best possible strategy for committing “Pseudocide”.

There’s three primary steps to any successful Pseudocide. 

Planning and Executing the “Incident”

Having a location and enough cash to relocate and hide.

Cutting off absolutely all ties and contact to previous life. 

Welcome to - “How to Fake Your Own Death”.

Today’s topic is getting a job. We’re gonna write a kickass resume, find a job, apply to a job, and crush a job interview.  Welcome to “How to Get a Job”.   Step one is writing a resume. Well, technically the first step would be to take a moment of introspection and figure out what you want in life, why you want it, what’s important to you, and what you’re actually good at if you’re being honest with yourself. 

But I hate talkin about that shit because I can’t effectively tell you how to not be stupid or make bad choices, so we’re just gonna assume you’re like most people: You want a buncha money, you want it because you think it’ll make you happier than you are, it’s important that people respect you for the job you do because you think employment has anything to do with your identity, and you’re gonna lie to yourself and say you could be good at way more things than you actually would be.

After all that bullshit introspection and the creation of your impeccable resume, it’s time to find a job. Fortunately for you, this is 2020. Almost ALL jobs are posted online for you, and the days of walking into businesses asking for resumes are all but dead.  

Football is just a couple weeks away, so if you haven’t drafted that team yet you’re about to. We’re gonna focus primarily on draft strategy and week-to-week adjustment strategies - while trying to avoid getting too deep in the weeds.

Right out the gate, let’s clarify we’re talkin American Football - not what we and a couple other countries refer to as soccer. 

More specifically, the art of drafting and winning in a Fantasy Football league.

First things first - understanding what you’re working with. You can’t draft a winning fantasy football team if you don’t understand what style of league you’re playing in, how it’s scored, or how it’s going to be drafted.

After you know what kind of draft you’re playing in, you need to understand what kind of league you’re playing in. It may be “Regular Scoring”, “PPR”, or “PPR Hybrid”. 

After you know the draft type and league type, you need to check what your roster slots and assignments are because these change league to league.

There are a metric f**k-ton of draft strategies out in the world, and I’m not going to presume to have the best one - but there are some golden rules that will statistically increase your chances of winning regardless of opinions.  

Today’s topic is something just about everyone has to do several times in their life, and - if you’re not rich - it sucks gigantic balls each time. 

Welcome to - “How to Relocate”

We’re gonna talk about purging your useless garbage, how and what to plan, the importance of organization, and all the shit that everyone screws up that makes moving extra miserable.  

We’ll throw some assumptions in the trash, look for sh*t that matters, and manipulate the person a little before and after the potential lie to increase our rate of success.

Fortunately, science and research is a thing, providing us with semi-reliable guidelines. Un-fortunately, the majority of humans have some horsesh*t ideas about what lying “Looks Like”, based on anecdotal research buzzwords and assumptions.