I’m so furious with the state of Massachusetts right now, I could scream. Avert your eyes, young ones. I’m pissed!

My great uncle works for a discount cigarette store in New Hampshire and yesterday he says to me, “Get ready, cigarette prices are rising!”

I knew the spendthrifts on Beacon Hill were planning on a tax increase on cigarettes to help pay for the ridiculous, or “revolutionary” as they call it, forced health insurance plan shoved down our throats but I thought I’d have more time. I thought maybe the handful of Republicans up there would slow it down. Nope. You’ll never see the idiots on Beacon Hill work so hard as when they are racing to push a tax increase bill through for immediate passage. So now, as of tomorrow morning, I have to pay an additional $1 per pack.

Before all the “oh-my-God-cigarettes-are-the-devil” folks get on my case, let me remind everyone that smoking is in fact LEGAL for adults such as myself. If you hate it so much, why not press lawmakers to make it illegal… oh wait, they’ll never do it. Why, you ask? They’ve come up with $174 million more reasons why.

From the Globe’s story: “Sen. Harriette Chandler, D-Worcester, said the tax is designed in part to discourage smoking, even as it raises new revenues.” That is such a heaping pile of bullshit, I can smell it through my monitor! I don’t know what Ms. Chandler looks like, but I imagine she had a smirk as she made that statement. They said that with the last tax increase, and the one before that, and the one before that… we smokers don’t quit, we adjust and the lawmakers have extra money to waste.

If your argument is, “smoking causes lots of medical problems that burden our healthcare system,” why don’t we start taxing fat people? Obesity is the new tobacco after all. Maybe we should add an additional $1 to every Big Mac sale? Increase the Massachusetts meal tax by 10%? How ’bout we throw on a sales tax for any plus size pair of pants? Want a pint of Ben and Jerry’s… cough over an extra $3. Oh no, we could never institute a tax like that, it’d be too discriminatory… right? “But smoking is your choice,” you say. So is cramming your face with a large order of french fries and washing it down with a super-sized gallon of Coke.

So, while the smokers once again are targeted because smoking is so politically incorrect, things like alcohol remain tax free. Don’t worry, downtrodden smoker… instead of lung cancer, in Massachusetts you can enjoy the wonders of cirrhosis of the liver! You’ll be too busy breathing easily to notice your jaundice!

Thank God my car is fuel-efficient because I can see a bi-weekly trip to New Hampshire in my future. Ah, New Hampshire… our friendly neighbor to the north. I can almost see the delight on the faces of the Seabrook cigarette retailers now. $$$

Yesterday was my 29th birthday – or as I like to call it, the last birthday I will ever celebrate. Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad. Usually, my birthdays are a huge letdown but I was fortunate to have a lot of things to do yesterday to keep my mind occupied on my last year as a vicenarian.

I got some pretty cool gifts, which I wasn’t expecting at all! Birthday presents are for five-year-olds. My dad got me a $50 gift card to the Patriots Pro Shop which will be used when we head to training camp later next month. My sister got me a Condi Rice biography and a gift card to Barnes & Noble. Perhaps the best gift I got was the most simple and it came from my boyfriend’s mother. She sent me a photo of my boyfriend, circa 1980-something, as a little league pitcher:

Now that I am the big 2-9, I’ve been thinking about all the life lessons I have learned. Here’s the top 29:

1. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
2. No matter how much you love it in the beginning, you will grow to hate your job.
3. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure as hell doesn’t hurt.
4. For every one nice person you come across in life, there will be 20 assholes.
5. If you like a guy, he won’t like you but if he likes you, you won’t like him.
6. If you need to get somewhere in a hurry, you will hit traffic.
7. High school really is the best time of your life.
8. Drunk driving is a skill. (disclaimer: I do not condone drunk driving. And yeah, don’t tell me you have never done it. Everyone has. The mere suggestion that you have not driven drunk at least once in your life is a heaping pile of horseshit.)
9. You will spend half of your life looking for your car keys.
10. Washing machines and dryers are giant sock-eaters.
11. Cynicism is the most important survival mechanism.
12. Hobbies are meant to distract you from the meaninglessness of life.
13. We can send a man millions of miles to the moon but we can’t build a car to run reliably after 200,000 miles.
14. If youth is wasted on the young, I say beauty is usually wasted on the stupid.
15. Everyone is shallow.
16. 90% of men are assholes yet 90% of ‘em think they are part of the elusive, not-an-asshole 10%.
17. No one on the planet knows how to drive, except for me of course.
18. Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.
19. If you really like a TV show, it will be canceled within a season.
20. If you really like a food item you found at the grocery store, chances are you will never see it there again.
21. REAL family, and I don’t just mean biological, is the only thing in life that matters…
22. …well, that and football.
23. Coffee after 3 p.m. will give you heartburn.
24. At some point in your life, someone will spit in your food. Ignorance is most certainly bliss.
25. New cars are for chumps and rich people.
26. Taxes suck.
27. The single most important skill in life is the art of bullshitting.
28. Patience is a virtue.
29. Typing out long lists are hard.

THANK GOODNESS last night was the boyfriend’s kid’s final little league game. It was round two of the Woburn Little Leauge playoffs, single elimination, and the kid’s team was facing league rival, the Angels, a team that walloped them the last time they played.

Sure, boyfriend and I got there a little late (top of the fifth) and kid’s team was down one run, but do you know what a pain in the ass it is to get to Woburn on a Thursday evening? The only realistic way to get there is 128, and 128 at 6 p.m. on a Thursday is suicide-inducing. (Actually, any road in the Greater Boston area at 6 p.m. is suicide-inducing.)

Anyway, like I said the score was really close when we got there. I had an uncomfortable conversation with the boyfriend’s ex (kid’s mom) about her desire to be put on medication after boyfriend left me alone with her. (I think I have a trusting face or something because people always feel the need to tell me way more than they should).

I couldn’t believe how nervous my boyfriend (and all the parents, for that matter) was. He was pacing like a psychopath and chain-smoking. “I can’t take this,” he kept saying.

Honey, it’s just a friggin’ little league game.

Unfortunately, the kid’s team lost. It was heartbreaking. They went into the bottom of the sixth (the little league equivalent of the ninth) with a one-run lead. Trying as hard as he could, the pitcher struck out two kids but the little girl on first base missed a ground ball that I think should have been foul. The tying run scored. On the next batter, an almost identical hit went over to first and again, she missed it. Winning run scores, game over.

As the Angels celebrated, the poor kids began crying. I mean, we can’t forget that they are only 8 or 9 years old. According to the kid, the little girl kept saying, “it’s all my fault,” as she sobbed in the dugout. Surprisingly, boyfriend’s kid handled the loss well. It’s even more surprising when you realize that THREE of kid’s friends play for the Angels and, in typical little boy style, razzed him like crazy after the game. “You lose, we win”… and so on. But the kid didn’t cry. What a good sport!

My boyfriend, on the other hand, did not handle it well. In fact, he bitched about the umpires, the little girl, the other team, the other parents, EVERYTHING! As we drove home (with the kid in the backseat, mind you), he kept repeating the events of the final inning. He kept whining about how his son might NEVER AGAIN get the opportunity to play in a championship game! Oh the agony! My boyfriend, I love him dearly, but sometimes he can be the biggest baby ever.

As sad as I was that the kids lost, I am THRILLED knowing that I no longer have to race to Woburn for games. I don’t have to sit through six long innings on perfect Saturday afternoons when I could be doing something else (shopping).

I think the administrators for boston.com made an “uh-oh”:

Original story: Angry kids protest gas prices after losing cable TV

In an effort to improve and bolster the results of my never-ending new job quest, I have decided to go where many washed-up, late-20-somethings have gone before… back to school. Sure, at this point I am only registered for classes that won’t start for an eternity (September) but hell, it’s a start. And it’s not as if I have been out of school forever. It’s only been two years since I took my last class. Luckily, I am also effortlessly able to blend in with the 18 to 24 year-old crowd thanks to my oh-so-youthful appearance (if only they knew I have the mind of a cranky 75-year-old).

My return to school will be the fourth in my illustrious on-again-off-again college career. And when I return again in September, it will be the TENTH (not second, not fifth, not even eighth) ANNIVERSARY of my first day in college. TEN flippin’ years at one flippin’ school. And all I can think of is how different life in general is since I started there. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

Major events of 1998:

Politics: In 1998, the country was embroiled over the Monica Lewinsky Scandal. Nowadays, in the post-9/11 world, we’re bombarded with a stale economy, a war in Iraq and an impending presidential election. In hindsight, it’s almost comical that this was the biggest political news of the day.

Internet: I’ll admit it… in 1998, I used AOL to get online. Don’t laugh because I’m sure you did too. How things have changed. In fact, Google didn’t even exist when I started college!

Music: When I was just a few weeks into my college days, Britney Spears’ first single “Baby One More Time” went to #1. It’s been ten years of her, too?!

Sports: The dreaded Yankees won another ring, the Bulls won another championship and the Broncos were on their way to successfully defending their Super Bowl title. Yes, life in Boston sports was drastically different back then. Nomar Garciaparra and Drew Bledsoe were the best things we had to offer. Tom Brady was battling Drew Henson in Michigan, Manny was in Cleveland, and Joe Thornton hadn’t gotten good enough for the Bruins to trade yet.

Movies: “Night at the Roxbury” was premiering. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, let’s just hope that it’s not ten years until I’m finished. Because, by that point, I’ll really just give up.