Lottery Challenge: Day 5

Tickets bought: five $2 Junior Ruby Reds
Day’s earnings: -$6
Net Earnings: -$38

This is getting to be ridiculous. I bought five Junior Ruby Red tickets today, thinking that five of the same tickets would at least net my money back for one day.

I did get one red 7, which doubles your winnings, but my winnings for that ticket was only $2, so I got $4…And I am now down $38.

I hate this. 

Lottery Challenge: Day 4

Tickets bought: two $5 Jingle Big Ol’ Bucks tickets
Day’s earnings: -$5
Net Earnings: -$32

I had every intention of buying one $10 ticket today, figuring, since it was Sunday and I have a lot to do, I would not waste my time losing more money. But I got to the store and they were all out of them. So instead I bought two Jingle Big Ol’ Bucks tickets, the last they had.

The ticket says, “lots of $50 and $100 winners” on it, so I figured I would may catch one of the last winners of the holiday season. I was wrong, though for the first time in this thing I actually made half my money back with a $5 winner.

Still, I’m digging quite a hole, and I guess the lesson learned from this whole thing may be that gambling doesn’t pay in the long run.

I’ve already decided that, when this whole thing ends, I am going to take a LOOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG break from scratch-offs.

See you tomorrow.

Lottery Challenge: Day 3

Tickets bought: two $3 and two $2
Day’s earnings: -$8
Net Earnings: -$27

The losses keep piling up. To change up my luck a little today, I decided against the $5 tickets, instead buying the middle-of-the-road tickets.

The $3 tickets are the most confusing, time consuming things ever!!! I got one called “Crossword” and another called “Bonus Bingo”, both of which took about as long to play as their real world counterparts. If I wanted to play Bingo, I would go to Kendale on Friday nights.

And after all that work, I didn’t win crap. I managed to salvage some face on the $2 tickets, winning, well, $2. It’s a very small consolation to an already bruised ego.

I wish I could just win $100 once, that way I would be playing with house money the rest of the time…Oh well, better luck tomorrow, hopefully. 

Lottery Challenge: Day 2

Tickets bought: one $5 Cash Blast and five $1 Straight 8’s scratch offs
Day’s Earnings: -$9 
Net profit: -$19

OK, so I’m in a hole, and I am starting to seriously reconsider this whole thing. And for the record, The Herald is not reimbursing me for this. This fiasco is wholly owned subsidiary of Jon Owens.

But since I signed on for 10 days, I am determined to go the distance, even if I lose everything.

I decided to shake it up a little today, so I bought one $5 ticket and five $1 tickets. If one in three tickets are winners, I figured I would at least get two prizes out of six tickets.

I was wrong. I only won on one $1 scratch off — a grand total of $1, my first winnings of the challenge. So I am down $19. Still, one good ticket could easily wipe that out. I may sweat a little harder come next Friday…

See you tomorrow. Pray for me! 

Lottery Challenge: Day 1

Tickets bought: two $5 Cash Zone scratch offs
Day’s Winnings: -$10 
Net profit: -$10

Ok, so the challenge is off to a rocky start. I went to my bank this morning and withdrew ten $10 bills for this fiasco, then stopped at the Kangaroo store on Spring Lane for my first tickets. Since I am partial to the $5 tickets, I thought I would start with them.

The lottery ticket supply at the store is dwindling. Several types were sold out. Apparently, a lot of people gave them as Christmas gifts. Anyway, neither of my first tickets gave me any return. Both were duds. Oh well.You may be wondering why I am stretching this thing out over 10 days. Why not go buy $100 of tickets and scratch them off at the same time?

The simple explanation is that I want to increase traffic on my blog, and a one-shot deal would not accomplish this. Since I’m sure you guys will be waiting anxiously for my daily updates, I figure this is a good way to up my blog hits over an extended period.

But the real reason is that I believe in fate. That is the reason I am buying $100 worth of tickets rather than just $5 or $10 — to raise the sample size, and hopefully get at least one big winner. If I bought all the tickets on one day, I would have just one day’s sample. And, like today, it may not be my lucky day, but one of the 10 days may be. 

After undertaking this fiasco, I began searching the Internet for similar challenges, and I found this one:

http://www.nevblog.com/2005/03/lottery-experiment-itch-to-scratch.html 

Hopefully I can be as lucky. See you tomorrow. 

The lottery challenge: Introduction

 

The North Carolina Education Lottery, that miracle scheme Gov. Easley said would save the state’s children but has turned out to be somewhat of a bust so far, intrigues me. I often find myself dropping a few dollars on scratch offs once every week or two, depending on my cash flow.

The other week I won $200 on one of them, which is my biggest win so far. But even moreso than the prospects of getting rich, there is something mathematically beautiful about the scratch-off games. I have a theory that if you are willing to invest enough money, you will always get your money back. The state says that 1 in 3 tickets pay at least face value, so there is a pretty good chance you aren’t going to go broke on them, unless you are just dumb.

Take today, for example. With a pocketful of cash from Christmas (I took back a HD DVD player my mom gave me because it wasn’t compatible with my regular old TV), I decided to buy $20 worth of scratch offs. I lost on two $5 tickets, but won $24 on a Carolina Hurricanes $5 ticket and another $6 on a $2 scratch-off. So I actually made $10. It was a good day. I was even off of work.

Well, I am going to test my theory out. Starting Thursday I am going to buy $10 in scratch-offs each day for the next 10 days. Though I am partial to the $5 tickets, I am going to mix it up. One day I plan to buy 10 $1 tickets, for example, and another I’ll just buy a $10 one. I will also try out every denomination available at some point.

By the end of this, I am either going to be rich or out $100. But I feel like I can at least make my money back, if not more.Wish me luck. I will try to update this blog every day before 5 p.m. with my results for the day.

Merry Christmas

Every year at Christmas, there is a solemn reminder that I am getting older. Last year, it was when my mom told me she wasn’t getting me a Playstation 3 because I was too old, and I had a career now so I could buy one for myself. I wrote it off as more about the $399 price tag than my age.But this year that moment has already come.

It happened tonight, Christmas Eve, when my family gathered for the annual gluttony of gifts – my mom loves to buy people stuff. I love to get stuff, too. but each year I have noticed that my gift pile gets smaller and smaller while the grandkids get more and more.

Anyway, so I got my nephew four tickets to next Sunday’s Carolina game against Valpo (thanks to my good friend Sharon at Lee County Schools), along with a Carolina football jersey to wear to it. His dad is a huge Duke fan, so since he was born I have made it a point to make him a Carolina fan. It has worked so far.

As the only grandson he has been spoiled rotten, but he has turned out to be a great, well-mannered kid, and I can’t wait to show him around Chapel Hill. He says now he wants to be a lawyer – which is the same thing I said when I was his age. So hopefully I can sway him to get good grades, go to UNC and actually be a lawyer, where he can make some real money.

After all the gifts were given out tonight it happened. He and my two nieces were getting ready to leave for another dinner at their other grandparents’ house, so I was trying to make plans with Kane for the game in a hurry. We couldn’t figure it all out, so Kane says, “why don’t I just call you this week?” and pulls out a cell phone to get my number.He’s 12. Since when did 12 year olds get phones? When I was 12 I got GI Joes, which makes me feel even older.

I can remember when Kane was born. I can remember how excited he was to get his first bike. How can he have a cell phone? I told him to call me anytime he wanted to, not just for the game. I’ll probably be bailing him out of jail one day because of that remark.My 14-year-old niece has had a phone for a few years now, something she coaxed out of their pawpaw (my dad), which, I got to hand it to her, because I could never do it. I was a spoiled rotten kid too, but daddy drew the line at a cell phone, at least until I went to college and he realized it was the best way to keep track of me.

She got my number too, to which I said, “Call me sometime, we’ll…er…um…go to the bar or something?” jokingly. Man I’m getting old. In less than a year, she will be driving… I can still remember holding hr for the first time in the hospital. Jeez.I’ve also noticed that I love giving gifts a lot more than getting them these days. I never understood why my parents were so happy on Christmas day, even though they never got anything cool. Now I know why.

But I still long for the good old days, when I got that Super Duper Double Looper racetrack.

Anywho, since you are never too old to enjoy a good cartoon, here is my favorite Christmas song ever. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!!! 

You stay classy, Sanford!!!

As you will read in Friday’s Herald, Ron Burgundy himself (actor Will Ferrell) came to Sanford Wednesday to play golf!!!

For me, this is about the most exciting thing to happen in this town since I got here just under four years ago. I wish I had been at Tobacco Road to interview him.

I can just picture it now. It would be just like those old Chris Farley SNL skits, where Farley asked people like Bruce Willis things like, “Remember that time in Die Hard when the helicopter blew up? That was awesome!” 

 

Since I didn’t get to interview him, I’ll make up a fake one. I imagine it would have went something like this:

Jon: So what was it like being Ron Burgundy? 

Will: It was hot in the polyester suits.

Jon: Did that gay Frenchman really break your arm in Talladega Nights?

Will: No 

Jon: Can you do a cheer for me?

Will: No??? (To Tobacco Road head golf pro Chris Brown) Who is this guy? 

Jon: Do something funny…

Will: Like what?

Jon: I don’t know. Fall down or shout or drink a lot of coffee or something.

Will: This interview is over. 

Jon: Kicking and Screaming sucked!!!

 

I bet he is pretty good at golf. He is an actor, which means he has a lot of free time on his hands. But I would still take him down that road at Tobacco Road. 

Lunch today

A funny thing happened on my way to a nice buffalo chicken sandwich today. Gordon Anderson, Billy Liggett and myself were enjoying a nice lunch at Local Joe’s when this woman, whom none of us had ever met and probably won’t ever meet again, came up and introduced herself as the best friend/employee of a prominent downtown business owner.

As a reporter, you never know what to expect in these situations. I’ve had coaches practically spit in my face, but I’ve also had little old ladies give me pecan pies and Christmas cards.

This woman had no holiday cheer for us, though. Instead, she wanted to get a snide comment in and run.

“(Business owner) is a bitch,” she said. “But I am a much bigger bitch than she ever thought about being.”

I didn’t really know what to think. What did that even mean? Was it a threat? Where is my chicken sandwich? Who am I? 

Without giving us a chance to respond, she bolts.

The sad part was, she had been in the restaurant a good 10 minutes before she ever approached us. That is the best she could think of? 

Apparently this woman was referring to an incident in which said minions of said business owner misheard Billy during a candidate’s forum in October. After trolling in the restaurant for 10 minutes, she decided to take the issue into her own hands.

All of this after Gordon Anderson found a $10 bill on the way to the local eatery.

Now I know the news business is often thankless, and incidents like this one comes with the territory. But this woman’s comment was just pointless and unprofessional. If you have a problem with what we print, write a letter to the editor. And if you have the “courage” to curse at said editor, don’t be a coward. At least have the decency allowing a response before bolting for the door.

If I owned a prominent local business, I certainly would not like my employees confronting the editor of the local newspaper — even, no especially, if it were on my behalf. That man buys ink by the barrel. 

If said prominent business owner — who Billy said has been nothing but nice since the alleged incident — has a problem, she should meet with Billy about it like an adult. Or pray over it and let it go.

Don’t ruin my buffalo chicken sandwich meal with nonsense from one of your workers. 

Ocean’s Deadliest

Having trouble sleeping last night, I turned by Animal Planet and discovered Ocean’s Deadliest, the last documentary filmed by Croc Hunter Steve Irwin.

It was a fascinating view of the world’s deadliest sea creatures, from a box jellyfish that killed people in a minute to a great white shark to, of course, the sea croc. But it was a little like watching a person tied to the tracks with a train heading his way, because this was the documentary Irwin was working on when a stingray stabbed him in the heart and killed him. The whole time you were just waiting on him to get killed.

Of course, that was what you always did with Irwin’s videos, since after all he was a little crazy. No, a lot crazy. The documentary showed him swimming around with sharks and sea snakes that could kill him in a matter of seconds.

Not to spoil it for you, but the documentary never shows him getting stabbed in the heart. For that, you’ll probably have to hit youtube.