NEVER judge a book by its cover!

This is the story that's making the rounds of the Internet and becoming one of the most watched videos on YouTube. It's a tale of an unassuming 47 year old Scottish spinster, Susan Boyle, who's not terribly attractive (never been kissed and lives alone with her cat "Pebbles"), who went on the TV show "Britain's Got Talent" to show the world that she had something to share. Looking at her, you would not think that she'd have much of a singing voice, but once she opened her mouth, out came the most amazing and incredible voice! She left the judges speechless and even tearing up watching her sing, and that's a rarity. I've never seen Simon Cowell look so rapturous at hearing someone sing before, and Piers Morgan smiled like I haven't seen him ever do so at a performance, either. It just goes to show that you shouldn't judge someone by their looks. We're so used to seeing beautiful people in show biz and we're so obsessed with beauty that it catches you off guard when someone who looks like Ms. Boyle comes out and wows the judges and the audience and leaves them wanting so much more. Another past contestant on "Britain's Got Talent" a season or two ago who looked rather frumpy and unassuming, Paul Potts, a mobile phone salesman, came out and sang "Nessun Dorma" from the opera "Turandot" and did a bang-up job (No, he's no Luciano Pavarotti, but for an untrained singer, he's not bad at all!). From what I hear, he won that season, now has a singing career and even a CD available. I've no doubt that Ms. Boyle will have the same luck, despite her looks. Honestly, she could look fairly attractive with a make-over if she wanted to go that route, but even so, even if she opted to keep her current looks, it doesn't matter, because she's gifted with a voice that she obviously longs to share with the world. It's such a feel-good story to see someone come out of their shell like this and thanks to the Internet, become an overnight star. I love these kinds of tales where ordinary people do extraordinary things like this, especially people who wouldn't ordinarily have a chance to make something of themselves gets their big break like that. People like Paul Potts and Susan Boyle are to be congratulated for having enough nerve to put themselves out there to be judged by the world, and have been found to have the charm and talent to wow us all despite their looks and to make us feel good about ourselves. Beauty isn't everything. It's what's inside that truly counts. Susan Boyle and Paul Potts have more than taught us that valuable lesson, because it's so easy to become cynical and look at someone who's unattractive and immediately assume that they have nothing special to offer the world. I hope that these two people have taught the world a lesson, that judging them on their looks alone is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Bravo, Paul Potts and Susan Boyle!

TAX DAY

Today is that day we all dread all year - the deadline to file your federal and state income tax forms. I am a classic procrastinator in that I always seem to wait until the very last minute to do mine, even though I file the 1040EZ forms for both my federal and state income tax returns. Combined, it takes maybe an hour at best to complete both of these forms - after I've done a worksheet first to go through all the numbers to make sure that everything adds up correctly and that everything's correct. Last year, in a classic procrastination, I literally waited until the absolutely last minute to file, forcing me to do so electronically and not finishing until just before midnight on the 15th. Well, that was a mistake, because it took many long hours to complete the form because it's not the simple EZ form and you have to go through many long pages of form after form after form just to get a combined state and federal return filed electronically. It's all very confusing and difficult and I promise I will not do that again if I can possibly help it. Doing it the old fashioned way with pencil, paper and calculator proved to be much faster and more efficient than doing it online. I don't know why they have to make it so difficult to use what's supposed to be a fast easy electronic filing system that increasingly the government is encouraging more people to use. Call me a Luddite, but I'll stick to the old fashioned way of doing my taxes. This year, I did wait almost to the last minute, but I got mine done Monday evening before my T'ai Chi class so that I could drive by the post office en route to class and mail my forms in envelopes with stamps on them, the way I prefer to file my taxes and will continue to prefer until they no longer allow us to do it that way. I just hope that it never come to that! Oh, and as for that economic stimulus? I broke even this year - I owed the federal government the exact amount of my state refund. So I didn't even come out ahead in the deal. But at least I didn't owe as much federal tax as I have in the past, so at least something went right, and I was glad, because finances have been tight for far too long now and I was very much afraid of not being able to afford to pay the tax man. Fortunately, I was able to afford it and break even in the process. Oh, well, here's hoping things go better next year. Maybe by then this vicious recession will be receding into memory. One can only hope.......