golotto's Blog

What other song could possibly fit the evening better than the all time spectacular...

         "Rollover Beethoven"        "Rollover Beethoven"

                     is it gonna roll!!? 

                                                                               yes

last night i lit some morning glory sparklers as my sister's family, & neice and nephew were visiting for the eve. i was the official sparkler lighter for the group. for some strange reason, as i stared into the beautiful colors being emitted by that sparker i had just ignited, it gave me the same feeling as when i stare upon the numbers generated on a newly minted quick-pick jackpot game lottery ticket. i can't explain it. the feeling was short lived however, as i was only lighting the sparklers and had to pass them to the others as soon as they were lit. have a nice 4th and remember to keep a bucket of water handy for collecting the spent sparklers.

The lottery was invented in Genoa, Italy in the 16th century. Numerous political candidates running for office would be narrowed down to several people with a drawing. The population began betting on which politicians they thought would be selected during the narrowing process and the lottery was born. As the lottery spread throughout the country and evolved, an Italian monk is reported to have pre-assigned numbers to different kinds of dream elements (topics of dreams). Many Italians would then use his guide to select their lottery numbers based on the dreams they each had prior to a drawing. Amazing. Today, more Italian lottery players go for the lucky-dip (quick-pick) than the monk's number guide.

 

yesterday, while doing some shopping, i decided (just for the fun of it) to see what it would cost to purchase 53 celluloid ping-pong balls. i discovered, to my amazement that ping-pong balls are very reasonably priced. they are usually sold in boxes of six ...so i purchased 9 boxes - 54 standard grade 40 millimeter 'white' balls for around twelve dollars plus sales tax. i'm now in the process of using a permanent magic marker to number them one through 53. the numbers generated by randomly drawing the balls will be used in my future lottery ticket purchases in combination with the standard random numbers (quick-picks) generated at the lottery terminal or using on-line rngs. i will also continue to play 'my-picks' on a regular basis especially at higher jackpot levels. once numbered, my 53 ping-pong balls are going to be placed in the tumble dryer for a minimum of 10 minutes of mixing (damp-dry setting) at 'no-heat' temperature setting. once the dry cycle is complete, i will randomly (without looking) pick 5 balls out of the dryer and record the numbers. the drawn balls will be returned to the dryer and an additional 5 minutes of mixing will take place (de-wrinkle setting) with all 53 balls mixing. i will then draw one powerball. since there are 53 balls in the dryer, i will continue to draw until i get a powerball number less than 43. as crazy as this sounds, i'm actually somewhat excited about the outcomes of these future draws - basically for two reasons. many actual drawing machines use celluloid numbered drawing balls and secondly, what could be a better way to achieve a truly random lotto ticket than 10 minutes of tumble dry?

i don't know where i first heard of this method of baking a frozen pizza, but we've been using it for a couple of years and it really does make the 'home' oven baked pizza look nice prior to serving. here's the tip: just before ending the baking process ...when the pizza is almost done ...for the last minute of baking time ...switch the oven from bake to broil and it gives the top of the pizza a nice golden professional finish. careful not to exceed one minute of broil since it does heat the top of the pizza very quickly ...but it sure looks nice :)

was there a computer mouse shown in the movie you've got mail? the other day i got into a lunchtime trivia discussion about this very topic. we all know that the majority of the scenes in the movie showed laptop (notebooks) being used by kathleen kelly and joe fox with no mouse in any of the notebook scenes. By mouse...i am referring to an auxiliary-pointing device attached to a computer (not the typical touch pad included with a notebook). ok, there were very few scenes in the movie showing desktop computers, scenes at the shop around the corner, the fox book store and one scene with joe fox using a desktop in his office late one night. but the question still remains ...was there ever a scene in the entire film that showed a computer mouse? did any of the fleeting scenes showing a desktop in the distance at either of the bookstores or the night scene in joe fox's office show a mouse? did the scene with birdie conrad (jean stapleton) doing accounting in the back of the shop around the corner show a mouse? an entire film based on computers and e-mail ...was there a mouse in the movie? last night i watched the film and found the answer :))

One of the most difficult and emotional aspects of jackpot games is deciding when to let go of a favorite set of numbers. It may be that old quick-pick that you've continued to play regularly or a personal my-pick that seems so perfectly balanced that you've convinced yourself that it'll be drawn at some future date. Dropping a favorite number set also involves the inevitable nagging thought that at least some of the numbers included in the set will surely hit soon. I have absolutely no answer for this dilemma other than to gradually rotate an old favorite set in and out of play as you begin the process of introducing new numbers. I guess the only alternative is to keep playing one or two sets permanently as some lotto participants do. Never taking a chance of allowing that perfect set to miss a draw is an option. Knowing that some number sets have won jackpots after years of play makes the decison all the more difficult.

automatically at $100M, i normally let the old 3:2 my-pick vs quick-pick 'kick in' ...i've done this for over a year and have been happy with a slightly overweighted mp vs qp play card. i'm now toying with the idea of adding $5 to wed's draw (certainly saturday's) and shifting to a 7:3 qp vs mp. keeping the original 'old automatic' play card containing three mps (my-picks) along with the regular two qps (quick-picks) and letting the rng (random number generator) loose on one 5 set play card. i have two my picks that i've rotated in and out of play since 12/25/02 and have included an old favorite qp as a new my pick at these levels. i like the idea at highest jkpt levels of the 7 qps. if for no other reason than the lucky 7. if i don't do it wed, i'll certainly make the shift for sat's draw...should we have a rollover. 'the old automatic' ...looking over past pb jackpot hits ...the 3:2 'parnell hit' proved it certainly can happen on a single card.

ok, i'm playing 5 sets on wed with 36 as my primary pb #.

36 is due. i'm also including white #13 in at least two sets.

if by chance we have a rollover, i'm going with 10 sets next sat. this isn't normal for me but i tend to do abnormal things at 200Million jkpt levels.

wed's draw will have alot (enormous) amount of resistance to another rollover but i sense that it still may happen

rollover beethoven