Life is a gamble worth taking…

I have two friends that I know through each other. Both lost dear pets this week. One was planned (not so much planned as expected) and one was not. Both loved their animals dearly and nothing I can say can accurately describe what they are going through. My heart is with them.

It is a gamble to take something/someone into your life. I have had many pets/people in my life. I have lost many of both types of comrades and yet I still try to take on more. None are ever quite the same, but I try to love them all the same. In my last partnership, I lost a dog and gained a cat. Many months later I decided I wanted another dog. The breed I wanted was a boston terrier. The same breed as my previous dog. I told people that I wasn’t replacing Sergeant Pious Underfoot, but I was. Sarge was gone from me and I missed him. So I got Kasper Alonzo VonSnowie. A gamble that I could take care of him on my own. A gamble on whether we would get along or not.

I bought the dog bed to keep him off the couch. He, therefore, pulls the dog bed onto the couch.

He is nothing like Sarge. He is twice as big and twice as hyper. And it turns out – twice as perfect. A perfect bet.

Not like the quick picks this week. LOSERS!

From Twitter

The Daily Game – 6-1-9. LOSER!!
8:17 AM Jan 20th from TweetDeck

It’s a conspiracy…

This is the week of Quick Picks by the way -no thought involved for me – I have a ton of other things going on and choosing four different numbers seems to be the last thing I want to do.

Today when buying my quick pick for Mega Millions, I was behind a gentleman who was purchasing a huge amount of The Daily Game tickets. 

The Daily Game is simple. You pick three numbers. 666. 357. 825. Any of the three. Essentially – if your number comes up. You win big – $500. If the three numbers comes up, but not in the order you chose them then you win ok – $80.

Anyway, this gentleman had about $40 tickets working. The tickets were coming and coming and coming. As they stopped, he look across the counter and called out nine more numbers. I knew then that I had to talk to them. His name is Andre. Andre spends up to $40 a day playing The Daily Game. Andre doesn’t look like someone who should spend $40 a day gambling. His gloves had holes in them and his clothes were not of disposable income value. But every day he spends a maximum of 40 American dollars.

So I had to ask… “What is your plan? How do you play?”

So he had to answer… “You have to play to beat them.  They cheat. They hold off on the numbers. The state doesn’t use the money for education. They use it to fill their coffers.” He went on and on about the way the state cheats us and how he has caught them in their game. This man lives and dies by this game. He claims that he makes a profit off it. He claims that it is an investment for him. Then again he told me that for the last two years; the state has pulled ‘777’ as a gift to those who know that the Washington State Lottery is a cheating mess.

They haven’t. They pulled…

Dec-25-2008 5 3 4

Dec-25-2007 1 9 3

Andre was right about one thing. The Daily Game and “running numbers” is essentially the same game. The only difference is The Daily Game isn’t managed by a guy name Vinnie from the back of a dive bar.

So this whole lottery thing has been an interesting eleven days.

First off, this experiment is just an odd thing.The mechanics are a bit interesting. I have a place where I buy the tickets that you fill out with a small golf pencil and choose your numbers. They find me either amusing or insane. Which is a common with most people and I expect nothing less. Heck! I had to actually have them explain the whole thing to me. I think a family owns the gas station, so I like going back there. No matter how much I enjoy the face to face acknowledgement of my stupidity, they havent provided me with any more luck.

I haven’t won the big bucks (yet!?).  Am I not lucky? Shoudn’t I be lucky?

Shouldn’t I be lucky in the big three – Life, Love and Liberty. Sometimes, I am. Sometimes, I am not. The thought is that we make our own luck. Or something, like that. You don’t make luck in the lottery. It’s gambling.

As for ‘L1’, my life has been pretty good in most cases. No broken bones, no major illness except  a constant need to have the old brain washed every other week. ‘L2’ or  Liberty – I am relatively free to do and say what I want. I would argue that as I get older I have less true “Liberty”.  I am not blissfully burdened by a straight from my loins biological family. I have  my dynamic dog, Kasper (a 32lb mostly white Boston Terrier whose full name is Kasper Alonzo Von Snowie) and two cats, Count Spatula (a loud and needy grey and white bit of joy) and Simon (a black and white neighborhood terror who will disappear for weeks and come back needing food and a tube to drain the fluids from the wound on his head). I certainly say what I want in most cases. I do find myself holding back in some ways. It has been a learned skill. It’s all good. Now for the final ‘L3’ – Love. Well, that is another long and eventful story.  I will leave that for another day.

Another day another dollar, isn’t that what they say.

Well, back to the subject,  I have spent $57 dollars and am not quite sure what I have won. I know in ‘scratch’ tickets I have won the most money, $12 (and that because Star and Sirius regifted me the scratch tix I gave them.) The odds of Simon coming home at night are better than me making more money than I am putting in. Good times.

Does this count – from twitter

Last night’s lottery was not sponsored by Washington state. http://tweetphoto.com/8817346

Haiti

We live the lottery everyday. Haiti certainly did. They were moving forward and now have been horribly knocked back. Think of them today.

Patterns

It was all about patterns today. http://twitpic.com/xzo1w

From Twitter

Already a known person where i play the lottery – played the classic Lotto. 6 quick picks. Didn’t want my own #s. http://twitpic.com/xqlqi

Status…

So far, I have spent 20 american dollars to find the amrican dream of easy money. I have won $12.

What have I found out… well I have discovered that scratch is more fun when you do it with others.

And that I didn’t really win, but my dear friends Sirius and Star let me have their Ace in the Hole.

That was 10 bucks of easy money and I only had to spend 10 bucks to get it.

The first ticket…

The first payment of the tax.

I bought the first ticket yesterday. It was actually somewhat confusing, it wasn’t the scratch off moments of bliss I remember as a child. I had to ask the 16 year old kid behind the counter to help me get going. He was flirting with another teenish girl and found it amusing to help out the old man take a tiny pencil and color in the dots not unlike the standardized test he will ae to take at the end of the year to determine if he can move on to the next grade level and go to college. I anticipate he hopes that he will never have to fill in another one of those number two based quizzes.

I get to find out today if I am a winner. I chose the ‘Match 4′ game for no reason, but it seemed easy. I drop 2 buck a game and played 5 games. It was exhilarating for some reason. I have no idea why. 

The thrill?

Wikipedia says –  ”The purchase of lottery tickets by large numbers of people is arguably economically irrational.”  I think that’s why I like this whole idea.