Some Lottery Ideas For Long Island

Liz at Half-Baked Sourdough tells of Alaska's contribution to modern lottery culture:

We have plenty of ice up here this winter. Don't let anybody in the South 48 tell you any different. We have so much, we are tired to death of it. If you need some, feel free to bring your own big trucks and come help yourselves. By now, though, what's left is nasty beyond words. It's yucky, dirty, and shredded. We call it "rotten" when it reaches this stage. Ugh. And a lot of it is plastered over every vehicle in the area. Man, when I get rich, I'm going to build a bunch of car-wash places in Wasilla. Talk about money machines...

In the meantime, we will do what we have always done: We'll use it for FUN. One of the oldest ways for this is the Nenana Ice Classic, a good, old-fashioned baseball-pool of a guessing game. Fairbanks, being in the really COLD part of Alaska (as compared to the just plain "COLD," or the average "cold"), has a unique way to capitalize on all their ice and get some publicity at the same time. They all get together and bet on when the ice on the Tanana River breaks up and moves. The jackpots are usually pretty good, depending, of course, on how many people buy a guess.

Hm! Well, there are people who'll bet on anything. Which got your Curmudgeon to thinking about lotteries that would be uniquely suited to Long Island:

• The Long Island Expressway Lottery: Players would bet on the next date and time at which traffic on the Expressway is entirely unobstructed by traffic jams, construction, or accident delays. This lottery would require a lot of patience.
  
• The Property Tax Lottery: Players would bet on which Long Island school district would experience the highest percentage increase in property taxes. This annual lottery might provide some compensation to the residents of the most vulpine districts.
  
• The Indictment Lottery: Players would bet on which elected official would be next to be the subject of a felony indictment. This lottery would also offer "place" and "show" prizes, the former for those who named officials indicted for misdemeanors, and the latter for those who predicted officials that were investigated but not charged. (No points for predicting party affiliations; only Republicans are ever indicted on Long Island.)
  
• The LIPA Lottery: Since it absorbed LILCO a few years back, the Long Island Power Authority, formed ostensibly to combat expensive electrical power, has steadily raised the price of electricity to its captive market. But surely at some point the price per kilowatt must go down, if only by a fraction of a penny! Can you predict when?
  
• The Pine Barrens Lottery: The Brookhaven Pine Barrens, a large tract of utterly useless land covered by "trees" that do nothing but drink our groundwater, has been barred to development of any sort for decades. Now and then hunters sally bravely into it in search of one of its few remaining deer. But environmentalists and anti-gun activists have campaigned to put an end to all hunting in the Barrens. Hazard a dollar and guess when even this pastime will be forbidden!
  

Got any ideas of your own?

Requiem

"Know how to make God laugh?"
"How?"
"You tell Him your plans."
(From Gregory Benford's Foundation's Fear)

About ten years ago, the #1 pastime of teens in my area was mailbox demolition. No, that wasn't solely my opinion. The Fortress of Crankitude went through several mailboxes of increasing sturdiness before I reached for the nukes.

Magda the Ultimate Mailbox arrived, fortuitously, on a Saturday morning. She was tough. She was strong. She was hardy. She was $169.95 before taxes and shipping. And she took me an entire day to install, what with the post-hole digging, and the concrete mixing, and the careful emplacement of the newel post, and time for the concrete to set, and the secure bolting of Magda to that brawny spar. Literally an entire day; I began at about 8:30 AM, and finished well after dark. The C.S.O. and I looked upon the completed assembly by flashlight -- didn't want to build a bonfire on the front lawn -- and saw that it was good.

Magda served us through many a vicissitude. She survived two hurricanes and uncounted nor'easters. Yes, the local teens did stage a couple of attempts on her life, but she proved more than equal to her own defense. Our worst problem was keeping the address numbers securely glued on; her super-slick anti-terrorism coating, no doubt intended to thwart limpet mines, made that a bit of a hassle. But the numbers on the front porch are visible from the street, and anyway, our carrier Lenny is 3,972 years old and has been with the Postal Service for 3,950 of them. It's rumored that he, not Moses, brought the Ten Commandments down the mountain. (There used to be fifteen, but Lenny dropped one of the tablets.) He has all the addresses on this street memorized already.

But all things must pass, and yesterday was Magda's turn. She met her demise in the huge ice storm that battered Long Island. Fortunately, she snapped off above the top of her mounting strut, so I won't have to dig 200 lb of concrete out of the ground when I replace her. But we're sad, nevertheless; she was a worthy 'box, plain in appearance but unflinching before the depredations of both Man and Nature.

Rest in peace, Magda. Flights of USPS trucks convey thee to thy rest, Express Mail. For those of you who'd like to attend, the funeral mass is tomorrow at 9 AM.

Poetry

Howard at Oraculations has just expressed his admiration for the "poetry" of the late Charles Bukowski. Now it is widely believed, albeit incorrectly, that beauty is entirely in the eye of the beholder. And it has been said, and truly, that there's no accounting for tastes. BUT...

If that is
Poetry
Then
So is this --
For both are
     ...without rhyme or meter...
     ...badly formatted...
     ...eccentrically punctuated...
     ...and leadenly sententious.

Dear Lord,
For Your humble servant's next birthday,
Would You please
Give us a rebirth of Kipling, Tennyson, and Coleridge,
And perhaps
(If Your schedule will permit)
Do something about the poseurs
Who
In their endless quest for a claim to "creativity"
Have drained
ALL meaning
From the noble word
Poetry?

Thank You, Lord.

Yours truly,
Francis W. Porretto

One Of THOSE Days...

A software engineer has had "one of those days" when the incomprehensible problem he's pursuing turns out to be a hardware fault. Granted, it doesn't happen often. But when it does, the agony is both poignant and severe.

I spent about two hours today trying to "debug" such a fault -- by phone. Few frustrations can compare with not being able to see your own program's behavior, using a distant collaborator as a waldo, and having absolutely no idea why what works in your own lab has failed catastrophically when installed afar.

The key question turned out to be: "Is it plugged in?"

Time to get drunk, I think.

Horizontal Snow!

That's what the emcees on WCBS-AM were raving about as I drove home. And indeed, the snow, though light, was blowing directly across the Long Island Expressway, roughly parallel to the ground.

So when do the earthquakes and tidal waves arrive?

(With apologies to Andersen Windows.)

Ironies Abounding

James Wolcott displays his characteristic inability to detect true irony:

"I believe it was Ann Coulter who said, after observing that liberals' whole public-relations strategy was to call conservatives names, that conservatives don't bother to call liberals names [my emph] because they have actual points to make and would rather spend their time making them."

--Francis W. Poretto, whose blog can be read if not fully comprehended here

Well, thanks for the citation, James, but as a devotee of accuracy and a fan of Miss Coulter's, I must point out:

1. The entire Right side of the Blogosphere has severely chided Miss Coulter for her crudity -- something the Left side has failed to notice.
   
2. When someone on the Left commits a comparable crudity -- for example, something like this:
   
   

   Ann Coulter may be a travesty of humanity, as unacceptable a hank of flesh draped on a hanger ever to be foisted upon an ignorant populace hungry for more ignorance. Her racism, her character slurs, her whirlwind talent for rewriting history, her ability to leave a glossy coat of slime on any issue she discusses (when she licks a stamp, it curls up and dies), these are condemnable.
   
   

   But credit where credit is due. The skank can shift ass on a dime.

   
   
   

   ...or this:
   
   

   Nov. 2: I am preparing myself for either outcome today. Should Kerry win, I will post an important statement called “A Time for Healing,” or something equally noble-sounding. Should Bush win, I shall post a statement of philosophical resignation tentatively titled “Good, Go Ahead, America, Choke on Your Own Vomit, You Deserve to Die.” The latter will probably require a little more tweaking.

   
   
   

   ...all his Leftist colleagues applaud and egg him on.
   

3. Miss Coulter still writes more incisively and entertainingly than you do.
   
4. My last name is spelled Porretto.
   
5. I aim the material at Eternity Road at an intelligent and well-educated readership; if you can't comprehend it, all I can offer is my sympathies.
   
6. Your obsession with me won't get you much traffic, as I'm a relatively low-status figure in Blogdom.
   

Just thought you'd like to know.

A New Threat To The Body Politic

The forces of the Left are frequently rather kooky -- we all know they believe words and opinions create reality rather than articulate or reflect it -- but their educational establishments are raising the insanity bar as we speak: Now they're accusing an association of Christian students of "harassment" simply for existing:

Today the National Litigation Foundation and the Alliance Defense Fund (representing a Christian student group called "Commissioned II Love") filed a lawsuit against Savannah State University in Georgia after the university expelled the group from campus. In one of the more bizarre cases of viewpoint discrimination that I've seen, the university first punished the group for "hazing" after the university discovered that group members voluntarily engaged in the ancient Christian practice of "foot washing." The practice sounds strange to some, but it is taken directly from one of Jesus' most famous acts and involves, well, literally washing (with soap and water) the feet of another member of the group as a symbolic act of humility, love, and service. The university construed this action as endangering the "physical health" of their students.

After suspending the group for "hazing" and "harassment" (yes, in the eyes of the university, students sharing their faith constitutes "harassment"), the university imposed the ultimate punishment — expulsion — when the group members had the audacity to go to an off-campus, weekend event together (a Christian music concert). In other words, the very act of collectively hanging out off campus was enough to impose the ultimate penalty on the group.

Well, in a university context, perhaps expulsion is the "ultimate penalty," but can anyone doubt that were stronger measures available, Savannah State would have imposed them? I mean, Christianity! That simply has to go, doesn't it?

Peeve Alert

I have a particular fascination with inconsiderate and discourteous drivers. They come in a number of flavors. Today's Special is the guy who, coming down the road in the opposite direction, sees that you're positioned to make a left turn, and:

1. Speeds up to prevent you from experiencing a gap in the traffic;
   
2. Slows down to prevent you from experiencing a gap in the traffic;
   
3. Conceals his intentions so as to freeze you in place until the light has turned against you.
   

I am convinced that there's a special circle in Hell for persons who behave thus. A traffic circle, of course. One where demon-piloted SUVs with massive V8 engines dart in and out so erratically that a mere human driver in a four-cylinder econobox never dares to exit.

Massively Tiring

Yes, yes, I know we've entered the era of the "permanent campaign," but in God's name, can't we have at least a little respite from the parade of politicos? By this time next year, the country will be so fatigued from all this self-promotion and jockeying for position that we'll probably elect Kim Jong-Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president just to be rid of our domestic clown troupe.

And people think the Anna Nicole / Britney / Lindsay news is tedious! I mean, Obama, Clinton, Romney and McCain don't even appear in public without underwear!

Hmmm, maybe we should be grateful for small favors.

Homely Wisdom With A Killer Right Hook

I just found this statement at The Brothers Judd. It strikes me as about as perceptive an analysis of contemporary international conflict as I've ever heard:

Alright. Here's how it works. It order to be rich enough to dream of fighting the United States, you have to become the United States. Of course, by that time you won't want to fight the United States. You don't want to become the United States? Not to worry: plenty of room on the ash-heap of history.

-- Lou Gots

Pass it around.