My Sick Mind

I continue to be fascinated by the lottery players . There's a little store near my home that sells tickets in all shapes, sizes and denominations. Almost every morning I stop in for some little thing and invariably there's someone in front of me making up the ticket order... "I'll have one Flamingo Bingo, two Win for Life, two Red Hot Slingo, one Raise the Stakes ..." On and on it goes until they either spend all the money in their hand or run out of catchy lottery names, whichever comes first. Usually the money thing comes first. They even had a Mother's Day ticket. "I love you mom. Here's ... absolutely nothing!" I considered getting one for mom, but then I sat down until the feeling passed. I've heard about people who give lottery tickets as gifts or leave them as tips at restaurants. Most of your fine dining establishments appreciate the lottery ticket as a tip. I'd never give one away because I feel like if I bought the thi...

Once every three months or so I find myself in the odd predicament of having 5 dollars that I don't want anymore, and I buy one of these things [to your right]. They draw 6 numbers and you win money if the numbers on your ticket matches some of them. It isn't even necessary to match all 6. You can win something for matching 3, 4 or 5. Matching 5 would get you about $2,500, 4 gets about $60 and matching three only pays you enough to buy another ticket. Of course, the Holy Grail is the 6, which, on a slow week gets $2.5 million. Most of us have said, at one time or another, "When I hit the lottery" which is followed by a dream paradise or just the sheer pleasure of being able to tell your boss to fuck off. 2.5 million would be enough for me to do that. Hell, right now, I'd do it for sixty bucks. The hopes and dreams of millions of people hinge on one of these little pink tickets having a lot of matching numbers. I don't think that's fair. After all, look at...

Just so you'll know, the other $390 million winning lottery ticket was unearthed on Monday . Locals, of sorts - from Cape May County - or what we here in the more densely populated areas of New Jersey refer to as The Sticks. The Messner's. A nice couple in their late 50s who will receive $116,557,083 before the 25 percent federal withholding tax. A shade over $29 million goes to the money launderers in Washington, and the other $87 mil goes to the winners. Their prize amount is half of the largest jackpot in the history of Mega Millions and in the history of North American lotteries. The largest single-ticket win in New Jersey Lottery's 36-year history, however, was claimed by Harold and Helen Lerner - the sole winners of a Mega Millions jackpot of $258 million on September 16, 2005. Seriously, should the government be handing out such large sums of money to people over gambling? Wouldn't it be better if the prizes were smaller but there were more winners? I k...

Oh ... 2007 looks like a Helluva year... In the year 2007 I resolve to: Start using a condom. Get your resolution here. Meanwhile... The final Mega Millions drawing of 2006 r esulted in more than 585,000 winning tickets, but none of them hit the jackpot. That means the excitement continues to build, and the Mega Millions jackpot for January 2, 2007 grows to an estimated $84 million . Here is a complete breakdown of all 587,301 winning tickets in Friday's drawing: Jackpot Winners 0 tickets matched all 6 numbers for: jackpot Other Prize Wi nners Prize Amount* 5 tickets matched 5 numbers for $250,000 27 tickets matched 4 numbers + the Mega Ball for $10,000 1,355 tickets matched 4 numbers for $150 1,716 tickets matched 3 numbers + the Mega Ball for $150 29, 105 tickets matched 2 numbers + the Mega Ball for $10 79, 893 tickets ...