Another Billion-dollar jackpot came up. Tonight's Powerball jackpot is $1.0 Billion dollars (maybe a little higher). Do i think anyone will win the jackpot tonight? No (I'm thinking Monday or Wednesday for a jackpot winner). But i do have a ticket just in case.
Even a virtual statistical impossibility needs a hand.
What is the line in the Richard Marx song "Remember Manhattan"? Something like "there's no wishing well that comes through without the dime". Is $2 the new dime?
MegaMillions has got to be struggling with their new $5 ticket. Their big justification was bigger jackpots - that have yet to materialize. i hated the increase to $2 (led by Powerball). The more than doubling of the price to $5 was a much bigger mistake. What do you expect when the head of the Mega Millions coalition is from WA. WA has the most useless/incompetent government employees of any state.
Slightly better odds should partially negate the possibility of much higher jackpots. It slightly increases the velocity of jackpot growth (well at least in theory). But it might actually lower the jackpot ceiling (lower maximum jackpot potential).
UPDATE: 2 winners split $1.8B TX, and MO.
This year for my alleged birthday, i got another castle. One that i have to use a spell checker to ever spell correctly. Go figure, i actually spelled it correctly on the first try. Germany and their compound words...
Introducing newest installment in the Just Saying series
Neuschwanstein Castle (famous as the inspiration for Disney's Cinderella's Castle and various movies including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Great Escape, and Monuments Men). Unfortunately, King Ludwig II died before the castle could be completed. Of course, my pictures all cut off the top of the highest tower.
If i were rich and much younger, i would love to have my own castle. More like a mini castle. King Ludwig II's scale was too ambitious. Maybe a mix of multiple styles a little from Neuschwanstein, a little from Himeji, some other castles, and modern conveniences. A secure outer perimeter, large open courtyards, a living area with a grotto and waterfall, towers/turrets, undercroft, and a great hall/ballroom.
Well, i almost survived another year*. My alleged time of birth was 8:23 or 8:32 PM (i can never remember which one) local time, so not at the time of this post. Maybe next year is when i finally beat my pesky oxygen habit. i'm sure the second anything goes right is when the final curtain falls.
i still suspect my "life" was a biggest bomb on this annual day (yes that includes Nagasaki "Fat Man")
Unlike some entity i wrongly convinced myself i knew, at least i won't be turning 50 this year.
* Survival connotes non-cessation of core bodily functions, does not connote any form of happiness or fulfillment. After all, Paul Young was right "happiness is just an illusion filled with sadness and confusion".
How old am i? i am essentially 15.77 years old. Though i might have a few years of experience being that age. Even though, physically i sometimes feel like i'm in my 60s (kind of hope i never actually am in my 60s). i am not an, what do you call it, adult. In terms of life experience, 15.77 might be an overestimation.
When you are younger, people ask your age, you can say it off the top of your head. When you get a little more calendar experience, it becomes a math problem. Let's just say "i love the 80s", "i survived the 90s" (but wish i hadn't. If only i had the guts/tools to do what i should have done in 99), and f* the new millennium (nothing redeeming about it).
Anyway, what did i get this year for my alleged birthday (still believe the i'm an alien stranded on this planet theory. The alternative is far too frightening to consider.)? A few dollars, a castle i bought myself (just saying), and a Powerball (save me Powerball, you are my only hope) ticket.
This date, X years ago my alleged father died of cancer at home. It was right before my 16th birthday. Trust me, the image of your father's naked corpse being wiped down by a hospice nurse is not something you want to remember.
There is a big chance here i'll give you a little too much information.
Should the doctor have caught the melanoma sooner? Definitely. He had a disgusting large and misshapen mole on his left arm. When he originally asked the doctor about it, she said something to the effect of "don't worry about it". Of course, she never even wrote his concerns in her notes. A few months later, he bumped the mole and it started to bleed. He had the mole removed, and of course it was cancerous. Then you get the whole 75% chance they got it. All well and good until it made it to his lymph nodes. Another 70% chance they stopped the cancer. Wrong again.
Now, for some thoughts on one of my favorite active anime. i'm talking about Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in A Dungeon (otherwise known, and i'll refer to it here, as Danmachi). Though the universe also includes a spin-off Sword Oratoria (and several other set in the same universe, some prequels).
One of the tropes i like in anime is a weak character becoming strong (i "grew up" playing JRPGs). Other examples of this include Arifureta and Black Clover.
Seasons 1-4 are available on Hulu.
One of my favorite ongoing anime is It is Wrong to Try and Pick up Girls in a Dungeon (otherwise known as Danmachi). Yes, i'll admit to first watching it on Hulu somewhat for its name. But it is a series with mutated mythology and a weak adventurer, originally rejected by the big players, becoming one of the strongest.
This is musings about the future hero Bell Canel's familia (adventurer family of a god, kind of like a faction/guild in something like Black Clover or Fairy Tail). Hestia (Vesta) was a virgin goddess with no children (adventurer followers) until Bell. As Bell grew, so too did the familia.
Keep in mind, i've only seen the anime through season 4. Come on Hulu get Season 5. i have no intention of ever reading the light novels for Danmachi, Sword Oratoria, or its spinoffs.
So, what does this familia need:
i got into watching anime on Hulu when US sitcoms seemed kind of stale. Some anime have weird stories. Being animated, they can also touch on certain themes in a different way than traditional TV shows can. However, there is still a bit of a culture gap between US/European viewer and the target market in Japan. The naming can get confusing - as the US versions sometimes alternate the order (US version first name then surname vs Japanese version. ie John Smith vs Smith John).
- Anime are used to prop up sales of books (light novels, manga) in Japan. As a result, many animes remain in an unfinished state (story stops cold, does not complete). Viewing this from a US perspective, i would be looking for completed light novels/mangas before i started a show. Not using continuing series.
i hate reading. It is not comfortable or fun. Sustained silent reading forced on me in high school caused me to resent reading. An hour or so a day of reading books i didn't want to. That is why i took more literature classes than most. Another reason to hate reading is how pretentious most of the "modern classics" are.
Gareth from the show non-anime show Galavant said it best: "reading is for morons who don't understand pictures".
So, MSFT abruptly shut down their Video and TV app on the Xbox. This kind of sucks, there were a few shows i was going to buy when they went on sale. If history is something to go on, it is only a matter of time before the videos i have on there are inaccessible.
Most of the stuff i have on the app was anime i bought on sale (mostly $4.99 or less). It worked fairly well for me and gave me another thing to use my MSFT Reward Points on (now it is only really useful for Game Pass, or a few games i've been thinking of for a while but never go on a deep enough discount).
Why did i get stuff on MSFT Video? A $5 season is much more justifiable than a $50+ season of 12 or so episodes. Though that doesn't apply if they are out of print (which since i started watching anime two or so years ago, many are). $100+ seasons are the norm. Anime Blu Rays are massively overpriced to begin with, ensuring relatively low sales.
i bought Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest on sale for $3.99 (plus sales tax, which i shouldn't have to pay for a digital license). i believe that is out-of-print in Region A. In general, AMZN Prime sales on anime suck. Not nearly as good as the $5 semi-annual MSFT Video and TV sales over the past couple of years (which included the English dubbed versions and clearly state what you are "purchasing").
i noticed a few things were on sale at AMZN Prime Video. But there is a very big problem i have with AMZN Prime Video purchases - the listings are kind of inaccurate. When i got into the listing, i clicked on information: it said available languages included English - i went through every episode of the season and it said the same thing. After i bought it, what was the only audio language available? You guessed it, Japanese.
Another undefined time period, another musing post.
- Saw an Instacart ad - summer like it's 1999. 1999 was one of the worst summers of my life. Don't want to relive a second of that misery.
Might have actually been worse than when my alleged father died of cancer 2 days before my 16th birthday (funeral was 2 days after). That one was expected (for a while). i felt a greater sense of loss in 1999 - more my dreams of the future (normalcy - marriage, kids, etc). And... die they did, never to be rekindled again. Both killed any future potential i might have ever had (other than illusions).
1999 was like the "King of Wishful Thinking" by Go West, "Missing You" by John Waite, and "Someday by Glass Tiger" - seem happy on the surface, but deep down come off as self-delusional false hope.
- Did i mention i hate summer? Well, i do. Wonder how much a C. Montgomery Burns style sun blocker would cost.
i noticed that there was a way to watch some ad-supported/free episodes on Crunchyroll. Let's just say, that tier is unstable. i would consider Crunchyroll/Hidive if they had gift cards that i could purchase in cash at retail.
* Crunchyroll Free Streaming: What's not to love - the 22+ ads in a 23-minute episode or the failure of ads to load - giving you an infinite black screen. That was on the app on my Xbox, maybe PC is more stable. Sure, there other problems, but those were the most annoyingly egregious.
i think i saw How to Train Your Dragon ads at least 100 times. Don't you hate in it in ad supported streaming when they take a break to show ads in the middle of sen.... Brought to you for 2.5 minutes by sponsors of a product/service you don't want or even need. tence?
If the advertisers are getting charged based off the number of ads shown, they are getting screwed. Frequently play the same ad back-to-back. The ads are set up as follows: 2 into ads, and an additional 4 sets of 5 or 6 ads.
"There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) referencing a quote attributed to Benjamin Disraeli.
Lately, i have been seeing a lot of talk about per capita (especially crime rates). Let's just say i'm not a fan (if you didn't gather that from the title of the post). Why?
- Stat normalization is decent in theory - used to compare populations of different sizes. However, there are inherent problems with it. A big one is that it tends to extrapolate data in lower populations and slightly suppress it in larger ones. True, variability is lower with larger populations.
Per capita is a rate stat for "normies" to massively oversimplify data. It is not really that useful and can be misleading. Comparing data in a very questionable way, while stripping out context. Per 100K, makes it look to me like the data has 4 or more leading zeros (after the decimal point). Always thought aggregate data was more meaningful. i don't need per capita for the data to make sense.
Example: if i had $1, and it was adjusted per 100,000. That would be treated as $100,000. Where did the extra money come from? Nowhere, because it never existed. That is an issue with lower populations - it extrapolates/creates data (which may not exactly exist) at a common rate. Yes, that is an extreme example.
What is week this week ("week" in this context not necessarily applying to a specific 7-day contiguous period).
- Juneteenth is upon us again. Why should i care? A Texas state psuedo-holiday carried over due to the venerable St George Floyd (the patron saint of drug overdoses). This should have never gone national - too bad the nation sold out to the scam that was Black Lives Matter.
To be fair, i think most holidays should not exist.
- Best anime name ever: Perv Asshat (from Eminence in Shadow - assume it might be an English name only).
Happy Friday the 13th. The only one in 2025. Next year, if it exists, there will be three (February, March, and November).
i never understood the fear of it (paraskevidekatriaphobia), it is just another day. This superstition never made any sense to me. It is not like we are around Camp Crystal Lake or live with someone named Jason.
The original Friday the 13th movie mostly took place in June. Will pseudo history repeat itself? One can only hope
i always hoped Friday the 13th could be a lucky day - to be fair, it hasn't been any unluckier than any other day.
What is the world coming to? Last night i saw a really bad cover of the Debbie Gibson song "Lost in Your Eyes" on a Best Food mayonnaise commercial. A man was painting a garage door and got stuck to it. i think he might have loved his sandwich a little too much. If you are going to defile the song, at least pay for rights to the original. i didn't recognize the song the first couple of times i saw it - pretty bad cover.
It is so hard for me to see these 80s songs defiled by crass commercialism. Good songs in bad ads. Yes, i will admit to singing along (quietly) to the music playing in Fred Meyer. Put more 2010 songs in your ads - oops i forgot how bad post 2000s music was/is.
i guess this is like what Don Henley meant when he "saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac. Don't look back you can never look back" ("Boys of Summer"). i didn't actually look the lyrics up, sorry if i was slightly off. A Cadillac was once considered a luxury car, seeing a hippie sticker on a luxury car must have seemed strange.
Did i ever mention that i used to have over 250 CDs? At one point i could have given you a list of all the songs on a CD in order and also knew over 70% of the lyrics. Thankfully, my memory is not quite that sharp anymore.
This date X years ago, i guess it is now X+1 years ago, i left college. This was the start of a series of events that i could have done without. Have i ever mentioned how much i hate summer?
A few days earlier, i was hanging out with my college girlfriend. i wanted to keep her in my life so bad, but that was never going to be. On some level i think i knew it. i spent most of that day crying. i suck at goodbyes. Girlfriends are not generally impressed by guys crying for hours at a time over them (especially when they are in the same room).
Apothecary Diaries kind of gripped my attention with its intrigue, "cases", quirky protagonist, and conspiracies. However, sometimes a little knowledge is a bad thing. i've seen the general direction the series is likely to go through recaps of the light novels - i'm out. As far as i'm concerned, it ends at the end of anime season 2 (Light Novel 4).
Sure, there may be a few interesting episodes - like Maomao debunking every magic trick at a "magic show", but there is not the same narrative pull there was in the first two seasons.
My Cannon Ending (super mega unrealistically happy):
Some potential spoilers from the light novels if you haven't read a recap of them. i only read recaps on a Wiki. Apparently another one releases at the end of this month. Ok, i'm a little twisted...
For some reason, this show kind of sticks with me. This is somewhat a recap, some speculation. Note: this is for the anime. i don't read manga or light novels. Looking up some stuff from the source material kind of ruins some things about the series. Some rabbit holes are better not jumped in.
i "bought season" 1 (part 1 and 2) for $8 on an Xbox sale - the blu-rays are $40+ each. Also got the first cour of season 2(for too much $11). Yes, i learned the terms cour and seinen.
Well, after a brief detour i'm back to musing again. So, what's weak this week? Let's burry the more interesting musings.
Also, happy "Volcano Day". Look up May 18th and Volcano. Used to have a jar of ash in my room.
Video Games:
The song today is "Tonight I Wanna Cry" by Keith Urban. Also, up for considering was "I'll Be Over You" by Toto.
Listening to the song would show my current headspace (thought i do not drink). Some songs hit harder in certain situations.
Going back through the disjointed slideshow that was my life playing in front of my eyes. Today's story is one of the bigger chances i felt i had to take. Like every other chance i took, it did not end the way i wanted it to.
It was Mid-April. i had been "going steady" with my girlfriend since MLK day. We started off as playful and flirtatious. Playing paper ball volleyball, exchanging notes, and throwing double entendres back and forth. She was probably the best friend i ever had, but, as a guy, i wanted more. i knew the clock was ticking and senior year would be over soon. Without a solid commitment, i knew i would lose her forever.
i had been thinking about "popping the question" for a while. i told her i was going to do this before we ever started officially dating. i delayed that plan when she got scared after giving out phony credit card information in a search for a former, i don't know what, named Brough. Not sure what the date actually was (probably about April 23). This will sound a little pathetic.
i've been listening to CDs again. Sometimes you play a compilation CD (Another Lost Decade: The 80s Hard to Find Hits) and one sticks out. Yes, this particular song was kind of hard to find.
This song was the 1989 single by Deon Estus (was in the backing band of Wham!) co-written by George Michael (also background vocals). This song seems to be about some type of breakup. i sympathize with this "Thought the first time/ Was the last time/ Would be (forever)".
Things are almost never that easy. Getting back on the proverbial horse is hard as hell. i could understand why you could need heaven to help get over someone and find someone new. i know heaven never helped me.
It is kind of weird to me that "retro radio" misses so many great songs. Some of the songs they do play ad nauseum i wonder why.
In my earlier years, i used to sing along for hours to my albums (mainly George Michael, Wham!, Chicago 17, Richard Marx and the radio). Singing along to Wham Rap 86 always felt a little strange. It's probably why i always opted for a little falsetto (trying to harmonize/match the pitch of the artist). Though when your voice gets a little deeper... Don't really know what my voice is since i sort of imitated other singers for so long.
Ok, this one might be on the more risqué side (at least for me).
Was watching the anime Yamada's First Time (B Gata H Kei). This is more from a female perspective. Then decided to read some of the manga online to see how the story ended (the manga is far dirtier than the show). Basically, a girl thinks she want to get with 100 guys. The journey starts with trying (badly) to seduce one "normal guy". After 2 or so years and a series of misadventures, she actually closes the deal with the guy. But sex was not exactly what she thought it was and the process changed her greatly.
What is it about sex that seems so mystical, yet strangely unfulfilling (i've heard)? Is it the "forbidden" (or discouraged) nature. Is it intimacy and surrender? As i understand it, it is kind of an awkward act - one that includes pain/discomfort and a little bit of pleasure. It is so built up as a world-shaking act, that it cannot help but ultimately be a little disappointing. Expecting intense fireworks, only to get burned a little by a sparkler. Expecting the dam to burst but only getting a trickle.
For the US reader (if any) this will make more sense.
"Nobody wants to get rid of Social Security" - well i do. Any government program that encourages dependency is a failure. Worse, any dependency inducing program that has perverse disincentives (like SS does).
Maybe not exactly heresy per se. These are my views on religion - in light of the Easter holiday. i was raised as Christian adjacent, so that is what i'll include.
So, what should we hit on: the nature of God, the resurrection, pre-destination, afterlife, and other ideas. How about a real challenge mythological "God", instead of bringing someone back from the dead, how about bringing back someone who never really lived life instead.
Much of what was in the bible was never meant to be taken strictly literally (especially the New Testament). There are parables, coded messages, allusions and metaphors that are lost on the modern reader. Not to mention questionable translations, edits/exclusions, and the like.
Wall of text incoming.
This is a late addition to the series. 1998's platinum album Wish You Were Here by Mark Wills.
i avoided placing this on the list for reasons. Yes, a girl was involved. She was a little bit country and i was a little bit pop. i asked her to listen to 98° and Rising by 98°. She was not a fan but kind of liked one of the songs "I Do (Cherish You) and heard it on country radio. She asked some country DJ based out of Wyoming who the song was by. After she found out, i bought this on a whim from "world famous" Rodeo Records.
Even though "Truly Madly Deeply" (Savage Garden) was in the running, i considered "I Do (Cherish You) to be "our" song. For a long time, it was hard for me to listen to the album. Though i had to admit that Mark Wills had some vocal talent (the twang and weird "country guitar" thing i could have done without). Yes, this was the first country album i ever bought. i got rid of this album after the BU but replaced it years later with a Greatest hits album (and bought MP3s of some of the other songs, i think).
Singles: (Chart position US country / chart position Billboard Hot 100)
Well, it is time again for me to look at the IMDB movie release schedule and see what upcoming movies from 2025 i am remotely interested in (though modern movies kind of suck). Date format is US (2/14 if February 14th). No movie is worth overpaying at the theater, so i'll wait until the library or Hulu gets it. That and it is kind of hard for me to sit through a movie in a theater nowadays.
