All I want is some fountain pen ink for my fountain pens.

I have discovered that is way, way easier said than done in these here parts. I’ve been to 6 or 7 stores so far—including OfficeMax, Office Depot, Staples, and University Art Supply (San Jose)—and called several others, and all I have found is one package of Waterman cartridges with black ink.

Short of driving all the way to Palo Alto—which it’s looking like I’m going to have to do, which is nuts, given that it’s 20 miles each way and I have two kids with me and we’ve already done our day-in-Palo-Alto for this month—I’m going to have to make an order online to buy ink.

All the stationers have closed, it seems. At least, around here. No more McWhorter’s. No independents like A&B Stationers (which was on Ventura in Studio City).

Anybody have any suggestions for where I can find some damn fountain pen ink?

I was reading this entry in the Taking Children Seriously blog when I ran across the phrase “one block stork margarine.”

What is “stork margarine”?

Update 7/31/05: Annnnnnnnd…we’re done. I don’t know why this is the favorite target entry of morons who want to post stupid things, but no one else gets to post now either!

In the book A Year In Provence, Peter Mayle describes buying a home in France. Evidently everyone lies about the actual prices of homes in France, because of the taxes, so that when the house sale is actually transacted, the government official conveniently leaves the room and the buyer gives the seller the real amount of money.

Having just bought a home here in the great state of California, I find myself wondering if the same sort of thing doesn’t go on here. I haven’t heard that it does; I just find myself wondering.

Property taxes in California are calculated based on the sales price—initial property taxes are 1% of the sales price, and the taxes can only rise 2% every year thereafter. (Yes, Proposition 13, and no, we won’t get into how it’s a complete windfall for corporations and everyone else gets screwed.) So if you buy a house for $100,000, your initial taxes will be $1,000 a year. (You will also be very popular, because I am willing to bet there isn’t a house in the entire state for under $300,000.)

But if I say my initial purchase price was $50,000, and I pay you $50,000 under the table, then my property taxes are only $500 to start with.

When you start adding lots of zeroes to all of these prices, you can see why people might want to do this.

Other than the fact that it’s illegal—and in today’s climate, ripping the entire state of California off for billions of dollars doesn’t even rate probation, let alone jail time—why aren’t people doing this with home sales? Or are they and I totally missed out?