argh!

i am incredibly pissed at my boss right now, but i just have to ignore that.

there's this snack shop/newspaper shop in the basement of my building. i go there occasionally to buy some chips or whatever. there's always people in front of me buying $10-20 worth of lottery tickets. can someone explain the appeal of the lottery to me? it seems like throwing money away, and $10-20 a day is a lot of money to throw away. now i admit, i waste some money too. i smoke a little bit, usually a pack a week or less. but let's go on the high side and say i smoke one $5 pack of cigarettes a week. that averages out to $260 a year. that's a decent chunk of change. maybe i should stop smoking. anyway, say you're a habitual lottery player and you buy a ticket for the mid-day and the evening drawing every day, as well as 2 for the big game every weekend. you're spending $12 a week, or $624 a year on lottery tickets and that's for someone who doesn't play very much. a hardcore lottery addict would easily spend twice, if not three or four times that. and i don't get this people who keep playing the same number every day because it's “bound to come up.” you're number has as much of a chance of coming up as the number my credit card’s account number does. every time the lottery goes every combination of numbers has an equal chance of being pulled. and that chance isn't very good. the worst part is that our government is the one who is running this scam. since the lottery is very popular with lower income people, it can basically called a highly regressive tax, punishing those who can least afford it. i hate the lottery, and it should be done away with.

the game last night rocked hard. nothing like a close game to get the excitement going. and it was the most beautiful night possible for baseball. i don't generally like night baseball, but last night was as good as it comes. time to work. and fume about my boss.