Everyone have their Powerballs ticket(s)? I’m not typically a lottery player, and truth be told, I spend maybe $5 a year on lottery tickets. We had a lottery pool going in the office for awhile, but I eventually dropped out because I couldn’t justify spending the money on Powerball. I tried to get my coworkers to pay the Oregon Lottery instead, but they wouldn’t have any part of it. Powerball, the argument went, paid more. With the Oregon Lottery, you get two sets of numbers per dollar you spend (doubling our chances of winning, essentially) plus a portion of the money goes back into Oregon programs that the state can’t pay for, such as public schools.
Between one chance for nothing and two chances for nothing, I’ll take two chances any day, especially given where the money goes. I’d take the paltry $1 million starting payout of the Oregon Lottery any day, though I’ve seen it get as high as $30 million.
Anyway, the Powerball is up to $340 million, a new record for Powerball. When I hear terms in the news like “record payout,” “highest ever,” and “lottery fever” I typically know it’s time to buy a ticket or two. I can spare a buck every now and then, even though I know I won’t win. Still, it’s always fun (and extremely unhealthy from what I hear) to speculate about what you’d do with the winnings. $340 million, taken in the lump sum payout comes to about $275 million. After taxes, that leaves you with around $140 million. Placed into a 3% savings account, that generates $4.2 million a year in interest, or about $2.2 million after taxes. I could live with that, y’know?
So what would I do if I won the lottery? After the requisite paying off my debts, the debts of my family, and pretty much anyone I’ve ever met, the obligatory trips to Europe, Vegas, and a sunny beach somewhere (not in that order, necessarily), I’d want to build a house. Maybe two. Gotta have a summer place, y’know? The rest…I’d invest it and hopefully earn more than 3% a year, donate a good deal to charities and the arts, and simply live my life however I pleased. Of course, I have no idea what that would be. Most of my days are taken up with work, but I’d have no need to work, freeing up my days. From my days of being unemployed, I know that “luxury” only goes so far, and after a year out of work I was desperate to get out of the house and back to work. Then again, I was also living with my Mom and broke. I wonder how I’d feel in a house all of my own and stinking rich? I’d still probably be bored off my ass after awhile. There would have to be a good deal of something to fill my time, whether it be travelling or hobnobbing with the rich and famous.
Naturally, it’s all moot since I won’t win. Neither will you. But for a mere $1, it’s interesting to think how different my life would be if I could do pretty much anything I wanted. We’re all restricted in some ways by money, making do with what we have and saving for the things we want to do. How would we act if money were not an issue? Would we be relatively the same? Or would we be different? I’m just glad that I’m already happy with my life, with my apartment, and with the things that surround me. I’m not lacking in any tangible way, and winning $140 million wouldn’t make me a happier person, it would just change how I live my life.
So I have my Powerball ticket, where’s yours?
Let me fill you in on a little virtual brouhaha that’s starting to spill into the real world. Fortunately, I’m a sideline player in the respect that I’m an interested observer. Jack Thompson is a Florida lawyer who has dedicated a good portion of his adult life to fighting violence and “inappropriate” (emphasis added since that’s an entirely subjective term) content in the media, form music to movies. The crusade he’s been on in the last five years or so, however, is in regards to video game violence. There’s no denying that games with violence are popular, but the real question is always What effect–if any–do they have on the players? Mr. Thompson seems to think that video games are nothing more than murder simulators for children, and he has been behind numerous lawsuits against players in the industry to hold them accountable for everything from murder to witchcraft. OK, so the latter of those isn’t true, but it sure feels like it.
Mr. Thompson, however, uses the most despicable means at his disposal to accomplish his mission, however, up to and including lying, name-calling, threats of legal action against those who disagree with him, and flat out being a dick. Now, I’m not one to disagree with his core message–violent video games shouldn’t be in the hands of minors–but I wholely disagree with his methodology. Holding the industry accountable for children playing games is ludicrous. When a child walks into Target, Best Buy, or Wal-Mart and buys a copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, who’s responsible? Rockstar Games? Or the retailer? Or the parent who gives the child the money to buy the game or buys it sight unseen? My bet is somewhere between the second and third choices. Do we hold a movie studio responsible if someone under the age of 17 is admitted to a rated R movie? No. California just passed a law making it punishable by the state government for retailers to sell video games with certain content to minors, and I laud the legal challenge that was recently begun by the video entertainment industry. Why, because I support kids playing violent games? Hell no. Because there’s no law on the books for movies or music. If it’s illegal for a kid to buy GTA: SA but not an album with the Parental Advisory on it, there’s something wrong with the law.
All video games sold in stores are rated just as movies are. Parents: use it the way you would a movie rating.
I digress, however. Mr. Thompson recently suggested in an open letter that he would donate $10,000 to the charity of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board’s (the organization responsible for rating games) President if someone would make a game where the player takes on the role of someone who goes on a killing rampage, killing video game store clerks, game industry programmers, and eventually the ESRB’s President and family. Pretty morbid, but he seems to think this is the kind of thing that gamers live for–as if we can all be lumped into one single category…does he even know that the best-selling game of all time is The Sims?
Someone took him up on the challenge and made the game, and he immediately recinded the offer, calling his suggestion “satire.” So in essence, he held $10,000 over the head of a charity and then withdrew it because someone called his bluff. Now, in the past I’ve mentioned the webcomic Penny Arcade, a strip drawn and run by a couple of gamers as their full-time jobs, and being video game industry insiders, they have some strong feelings about Jack Thompson already. Pretty much,the T-shirt that ThinkGeek sells sums up their feelings. The duo that writes and draws the strips has raised more than $500,000 for hospitalized children via the charity they started two years ago, Child’s Play, so they’re no stranger to charity donations.
When Jack Thompson rescinded his $10,000 charity offer, the guys at PA decided that they needed to pick up the slack, so they donated $10,000 to the Entertainment Software Association Foundation–the ESRB President’s charity of choice. Not only did they follow through on the offer for Mr. Thompson, but they did it in his name. The memo field on the check says it all:
For Jack Thompson because Jack Thompson won’t. The guys at Penny Arcade are my personal heroes right now, not only for spending $10,000 before their annual charity drive ramps up (Child’s Play typically raises money around the holidays), but for making Mr. Thompson look like a stingy fool.
My disdain for Mr. Thompson as well as that of other gamers isn’t because he stands in the way of some vast conspiracy to put games into the hands of minors, but because he makes those of us who enjoy playing games some consider violent now and then sound like we’re murderous killers ready to pop and spreads lies and innuendo about games and gamers. I resent being lumped in with people who think they can blame the fact that they played Grand Theft Auto 3 once or twice on their arrest for killing three cops. Mr. Thompson gets put on shows like “20/20″ and “60 Minutes” and he says that players are rewarded for killing pregnant women in a specific game, though in that particular game there are neither pregnant women nor any sort of scoring or reward system. He holds a press conference and says that John Lee Malvo, the “Beltway Sniper,” trained to kill playing “Halo.” (Should I be worried about you, Ben? 
) He stands next to a grieving family and says “These cops were killed because the killer played violent games.” He’s nothing more than an opportunist who says whatever is required–truth or fiction–to accomplish his goals.
When called on his incorrect statements, his response is always along the lines of “You must be on drugs,” or “What do you know? You’re just a gamer,” or “You’re an idiot who doesn’t know anything.” If pressed further, he always threatens legal action. He’s compared video game industry executives to everyone from Hitler to Stalin.
Naturally, once the folks at Penny Arcade showed him up and made him look like a fool, he went with option 2 and threatened legal action. What a tool. I’d write more about his antics and his threats against people in the gaming industry, but frankly, I don’t feel like giving this wackjob any more of my attention.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night with a Charley horse in my calf, the first time that’s ever happened at night. I’ve previously caused them in my foot by holding my foot muscles in a certain way which causes an arch muscle to seize up, but this was the first time I’ve ever had one in my calf. I was astounded at the sudden pain it caused, and frankly I can think of no better middle-of-the-night alarm clock than that sensation. For those of you that have never had a Charley horse, take a muscle in the arch of your foot or your calf, and then imagine that it’s somehow twisted like how you wrong out as towel. That’s not what physically is happening to the muscle, but it sure as hell feels like it. I think it’s actually caussed by the hardening of a muscle briefly, like when you flex a muscle group, but it feels a little different than when you flex your bisceps standing in front of a mirror. Feels more like a knife being driven into your leg and twisted.
So now I’m limping around a bit today, because I’m finding that the calf Charley horse leavea a bit of a lasting impression. It fine if I stretch my leg while I’m sitting, but if I let it sit for too long without moving it around and I get up, I hobble for a minute or two. It’s painful. Combined with my sore thighs from my Monday jog, my legs aren’t in good shape. So much for my planned afternoon jog.
Erika went out an purchased me an apartment-warming gift yesterday, and I must say she was extremely generous. I opened the bag to find an extremely nice pasta maker, something that’s been on my to-buy list for a number of years. It’s heavy, it’s solid, and the directions are primarily in Italian. I look forward to figuring out how to use it. I promised I’d make her a dinner worthy of her present, utilizing whatever culinary skills I can muster up at the time. I already make my own pasta sauces, and for years I’ve been wanting to take it one step further and make the pasta, too. Of course, all I can make with the included contents are linguine, spaghetti, and fettucine, but I can buy attachments to make ravioli and other types. I’ve seen people making ravioli before and it looks like tremendous fun, and of course, this means I’ll have to buy the assorted attachments, a drying rack for the pasta, and other goodies.
Speaking of culinary skills, today’s issue of the Willamette Week offered an extremely handy insert with a listing and brief review of the paper’s 100 favorite Portland-area restaurants. With such Portland perennial favorites such as Ringside, Wildwood, Morton’s, the Heathman, and Pho Van on the list, I was also pleasantly surprised to see three within easy walking distance of my apartment (that is, under 10 blocks) and another four within the same radius of Erika’s apartment. I may be my own biggest fan when it comes to my self-taught cooking skills, but I know that I can’t possibly hold a candle to the best restaurants in Portland. Fortunately, I have enough disposable income to try one out occasionally, and I plan on doing just that. I was actually going to take Erika out to one of the three within walking distance of my place last week, but we ended up changing our plans and eating in, instead.
Man, I live in a great area.
