House of Wachs

My Short, Thin Lottery Win

I like to play scratch-offs once in awhile. It relaxes me. And it kills time waiting for prescriptions.And they're shiny with pretty colors.

Gambling losses are brutally final. After all the marketing of the riches that await even the most blithe person on the planet, the silence after a scratch-off loss is devastating. YOU LOST! THAT MAKES YOU A LOSER! YOU'LL NEVER WIN ANYTHING! MAKE A BET?

No post-scratch interviews. No "good try" from the clerk (half the time it's a vending machine that resembles a Baltic version of a vaguely Vegasy slotesque gambling device). No half off coupons to come back and play again. No one thanking you for helping kids go to college via the Hope Scholarship. Not mine, of course. She chose not to attend a Georgia college. All my lottery money goes to other people's kids, most of whom are undeserving knob slobbers. I hate losing to them.

Then you toss the ravaged card out into a garbage can, the dream aborted, rosy mental budget projections quickly repealed. The mortgage will remain underwater for now.

Occasionally, I'll use one to clear my teeth of stuck meat, but that's rare...the occasion, not the meat, I mean. Which is not to say that the meat doesn't originally START as rare, it's just I don't see how even the most lightly cooked meats, being stuck in the human mouth for hours and hours could physically maintain their state of tartare. THAT would be double rare.

Today, I received this scratch-off at Publix:

Every single box a winner!

Kinda. If you consider $3 prizes a win. I don't.

The uniform cheapness of the prizes proves that this is nothing but an engineered win designed to elicit a positive consumer response; a free crack sample.

I did buy two more with some of my winnings. Sho' nuf:




WAH-WAHHHHHH! BOIOIOIOINGGGG!!!They sure fixed their printing glitches damn fast that day. Can't see it in this photo, but the final prize amount under the "5" is 10 grand. So close. Not really.

There's no double rare in the scratch-off game. Get a matching number, get a tiny prize. Big prize? Non-matching number. To deny this is to be doomed to a double-wide.

I walked away with a profit of $23, which will go to Princess' tuition. I suppose it would be discourteous not to thank the GA Lottery for helping me start my own out-of-state Hope Scholarship.

VOICE MAIL IDOL

Time for our new show, Voice Mail Idol, where you can be a star by simply dialing your phone.

Our first contestant is a local scenester. You've heard him on the Regular Guys Show. He was briefly known as Mr. Atlanta, and recently called us here at Voice Mail Idol. Please welcome the comic musings of

Garrett, the 41-Year Old Intern!!!

Points off because the waveform of Garrett's call on my editing software looks like a large dugan with some piercings. Kinda like a Goth Dork. It's sending the wrong message.

If you have something of interest to say, call my cell phone. The winner can be my friend. Deadline for entry 1/15/07.  Make sure to vote for your favorite.

Thanks for listening to....Voice Mail Idol!!!

Hiroshima's Revenge

This is my Sudoku puzzle from today's paper:

"Puzzle called on account of shitty newsprint."

I lost interest in this particular puzzle because I couldn't see anymore after two hours of strain. This was a relatively easy puzzle according to the star rating at the bottom and that pissed me off.

Fuck you Sudoku! 

The puzzle and, by logical extension,  the Japanese people, are mocking me. See if I buy anymore fancy cameras and cellphones again. Hello Nokia!. You don't see the Fins harrassing us with their superior math wisdom.

Fuck you Japs!

I'm going to go out and purchase special Sudoku-calibrated pencils and erasers. Do any exist? That's hardcore. And the local shithead newspaper should either commit to better paper or stick with the Jumble and get out of the Sudoku business altogether. When you get the news correct, then you can monkey with Japanese puzzles.

Fuck you AJC!

The American economy must be going gangbusters if we can afford the luxury of another time-wasting Japanese fad on our shores.

Fuck you Tamagotchi!

I'm 1 for 6 in Sudoku so far, and that needs to change soon. This ain't gonna be my Rubik's Waterloo. I can't wait for this to be unpopular to do.

Fuck you faddish behavior and the desire to conform!