"At times I think and at times I am."
- Paul Valery

Just about a month ago, I saw this Wired article and had thoughts of jumping off the roof instead of taking the stairs down to my car (figuratively speaking of course).

I couldn't believe what I was reading, Microsoft had just paid $240 million dollars for a 1.6% share of Facebook. Thats just absolutely ridiculous, it places Facebooks's value at $15 billion dollars!?!? Facebook has less than $200 million in annual revenue. How in the world could Microsoft believe that they could valued that much? Even with a 20% increase in annual revenue every year, it would take them 15-16 years before they earned 15 billion. Either Microsoft payed way too much money or we are headed towards another Dot Bomb.

Here is a small follow-up to that article.

I've had a copy of this video on my machine for a while and thought that I would post a link to it. It's one of the coolest videos around not only because you hear the kids rooting for their dad but also because he's racing a minivan and smokes a Camaro!! Enjoy.

Last night I decided to update the Photo Gallery to look a little nicer and provide an image from my latest galleries. The change wasn't a major overhaul or anything but definitely an improvement from what it was before. I hope in the future to figure a better more interactive way to deliver the few photos that I take...

For some really cool photography, check my buddy Dave's site, Seinberg.net

Biting off an experiment I found on Neville's Lottery Experiment, I figured I would try my luck and see what (if anything) I could earn in purchasing $100 in scratch off tickets. For the record, I hardly if ever gamble (casino's included) so I figured what came out of it I would try and have fun in the process. Before I started, I told myself that I would re-invest every dollar of my earnings until I either reached 10k (hehe) or $0 (more like it). As you will see, my fainted delusions of actually wining quickly withered away. Here's how my experiment went:

Round 1, $100
To start off with, I went to the atm and withdrew $100. I took the money and purchased 50 - $2 dollar Lucky Roller tickets from 3 different locations, the Dash-in (Shell owned), 7-11 and one of the local liquor stores.

I sat down with my girl and started scratching them off, laying out a trashbag to catch up of all the metalic-scratch-off stuff that the tickets produce. After about 20 mins we finished and I counted the win pile. Out of the 50 tickets, only 12 of them were winners (24%) producing only $64 bucks in earnings.

Round 2, $64
With my 34% loss from round 1, I decided to switch up the strategy and see if my luck would do any better with the 1$ scratch offs, the Triple Triplers. I went back out to the stores and purchased 64 -$1 Triple Triplers. I immediately noticed that the odds of winning on these tickets was less than that of the Lucky Rollers, but I forged forward hoping that it wouldn't make much of a difference.



This was a little bit daunting, but after about 25 mins or so we were done. Out of the 64 tickets we scratched off, only 11 of which were winners (17%)... This came no where close to the estimated 1 in 4.25 percent chance of winning and my 'earnings' reflected it. I netted a paltry $17, a net loss of 64%!!!

Round 3, $17
At this point I'm starting to think that the higher purchase price tickets will produce bigger earnings and have a higher frequency of winning. With that in mind, I went back out to the store (7-11 only this time) and purchased 8 - $2 Heads or Tails and 1-$1 Jokers Wild tickets...



Disappointment struck yet again, this time only winning $5. Out of the 9 tickets, only 1 was a winner having a win rate of 11%. At this point I was getting a little tired of scratching off tickets but the glimmer of hope that I had in winning a big pay off kept me going.

Round 4
Down to my last $5 bucks, I drove back to the 7-11 and picked up 1-$3 Instant Keno and 2-$1 7^th Inning Stretch tickets.



As you might have expected, no big winners. Only of the tickets was a winner (33%) but it was only for $2. I decided to stop there since it was 11pm and the stores no longer were selling tickets.


In all I had fun scratching my way to a net loss of $98 but out of it I learned some important things, the more money the ticket costs, the more money you might possibly win, the odds on the back of the tickets are BS, and I'm not as lucky as Neville who actually made $2!! Oh well, I had fun anyway... and will try the same experiment again next month =)

I was just watching the afternoon news and they were talking about how N.a.T.O. and the President of Afghanistan believe that Pakistan is training Taliban soldiers. They then went on to say how Senator Bill Frist just made a visit to the region and that he would like to see some of the "non-militarized" Taliban leaders be made part of the government in an effort to re-unite their country.

Call me crazy but isn't the Taliban the same regime that we tried to out right after 9/11?  I mean wtf, why would anyone recommend giving the Taliban a slice of power when our entire intention was to take it away from them?

I love my country but my god, please stop with the hypocrisy. These type of 'suggestion' are part of the reason why every rebel faction that we have fought against has at some point been funded and trained by the U.S. like the Taliban.

A good buddy of mine, Seinberg who runs a blog called "My Fabric Softener Spilled And Caused A Fabreeze" (no relation to laundry unfortunately) reminded me the other day of a special technique he uses for getting the wrinkles out of your clothes long after they have been washed and dried (and not worn of course).  For instance, if you have left your clothes in the washer but forgot until days later when they are a dried mass of entanglement or forgot to pull then from the dryer until they were cold and crinkled, then you know that you are facing The Iron for getting the wrinkles out.

Ironing is fine for a few items like work and 'going-out' clothes, but not for your everyday gear. If you had to iron everything it would take entirely way too long. So, what you need to remedy those wrinkles with is another round in the dryer. Thats right, all you have to do is load up the dryer with your wrinkled clothes and add a wet towel.

The towel should be about the same size towel you would use to dry off with after a shower, somewhat large. Make the towel wet but not soaking wet. It should have about the same wetness as the clothes you get from the washer right after it's done with a little bit extra dampness to account for the other clothes.  Set the dryer to Medium and kick off the spin cycle. When it's done your clothes will have had their second lease on warmth, pliable non-wrinkledness.  The technique might not work well for extremely large loads.

I don't know about you, but I hate doing laundry. It's not that I am repelled by clean clothes or the fresh scent of Downy fabric softener, no, its the length of time and monotony of washing, drying and folding that makes me hate it. Now unless your willing to go to a laundra-mat, or pay the dry cleaners lots of money, you are pretty much stuck waiting the 30 minutes to wash a load, an hour to wait for it to dry and then the grueling 20 minutes or so that it takes to fold them. So in an effort to reduce my effort, I went on a hunt to find anything that could cut down what it takes to make my threads smell fresh and crisp when folded. Here is what I found:

Man, its been a while since I have last posted an entry. I've forgotten the enjoy I have of telling no-one in particular random thoughts I have to talk about.

Doggie Faggots Website Launched!
I launched the website tonight for one of my buddies who has an idea for selling bundles of sticks as dog toys. A while back he and idea talked about the idea, but he seemed to be more motivated in 'making it happen'. Good Luck Damien, I think this idea will make some money, but you definitely have to choose a different name for the sticks! » DoggieFaggots.com

Update: Doggie Faggots is no longer running, after not really doing anything with it, my buddy shut down the site.

Although the space capsule that was send out to collect cosmic dust landed a few days ago, I'm still mystified at the thought that we have gathered physical material from something that originated on the edge or even outside of our solar system. Thats pretty unbelievable if you ask me, and probably just as unbelievable is stuff they made to collect it, it's made out of 99.8% air, holy shit!

This past weekend I decided to pick up a shotgun, I went with the Winchester Super x2. It was a toss up between that or a Browning Gold, they were both are pretty similar guns. However I liked the Super 2x better because it has a fat, raised rib vent that draws your eye down the barrel when you shoulder it up. I expect to be powdering many clays with this gun over the months and years to come.

1. Loch Raven Skeet and Trap (my local gun club)

In 2006 I want to follow through on at least 2 of my business ideas, finish building my basement, increase my net worth by at least 15-20%, visit more often with my friends and family who live out-of-state, eat more healthy, smoke less, exersize more, go camping, go tubing down the icy Gun Powder in the heat of the summer and last of all.... win the lottery!