Winning Too Much Money

There was a multi state power ball lottery here this month and the grand prize amount for it was over $500 million dollars. Two winners split the prize total. Lottery fever has caused the winnings to go up and up the last few days as the media reported both the prize total and the frenzy that it helps cause by promoting it. Many people are by nature both greedy and in search of the easy way to gratify themselves. So throwing their money away on lottery tickets makes sense to them. I guess they have too much hope and too little common sense.

A local radio station here posted a poll with the question, "If you were to win the big Power ball jackpot, would you quit your job?" Over 60% of them said yes. I am only surprised that more didn't answer that way. I don't waste my money buying lottery tickets and even I would quit work (If I were still working) if I won a big lottery prize. Well, whomever wins the lottery should probably keep in contact with their former employer because more than half of all multi million dollar lottery winners wind up eventually broke...and it doesn't take long for them to become destitute.

Almost all governments who pay off lottery winners do nothing about counseling them on how to handle their winnings. The fair way of handing over the money would be to require some instructional time on finance and a lock on some of the money by placing it in a trust find the winners could not access for quite a few years. I suggest a 10 year trust fund invested in government bonds. At least that money would still be there for them after the winners blow the rest and become homeless.

Many winners have no experience handling money and have lived paycheck to paycheck most of their lives. After they win a lottery they often spend their new wealth as fast as it comes . One of the biggest sources of loss is from relatives, friends and acquaintances who come from former invisibility to ask the winners for money. Most winners hand it over or invest in the wild business schemes those people pledge to them. In short, they become a huge target. Statistics show that about 70% of all lottery winners are completely broke within five years after wining the lottery.

The good news for lottery winners is that they really don't have to be rich to be happy. Research finds that household income, once above $75,000, does not bring more happiness. Life experiences bring more happiness than possessions, research suggests. So if you are poor, smile and pity the winners of that $500 million prize.

Sleeping Beauty Syndrome

I have sleep apnea so I am jealous of people who can sleep normally, or even more than 5 hours a nights. But I am not jealous of those who have a different kind of sleep disorder, one that makes them sleep too much. The rare sleeping disorder Kleine-Levin, nicknamed "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome", is something I was not aware of until reading about a teenage girl from Pennsylvania who has it about as bad as it can get.

The few who have SBS may go for a period of weeks, months or even years without experiencing any symptoms, and then they reappear with little warning. In addition to excessive sleeping, symptoms include disorientation, hallucination, child-like behavior, binge eating and periods of hyper sexuality when awake. Actually, the person who has this isn't really asleep, but rather in a kind of trance that is induced by an unknown brain malfunction.

Nicole Delien, 17, from Pennsylvania said she's missed out on past Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays and even the first family trip to Disney World. (I hope she missed the U.S. presidential campaign and election too. It almost put me in a coma too!) Her mom says Nicole will sleep 18 or 19 hours a day, and when she does wake up to eat, she said Nicole is in a sleepwalking state which she doesn't remember. Nicole frequently falls under sleep spells and wakes up in a confused state while sleepwalking. When awake, the person with SBS has a change in personality is changed. They most often appear childlike. When awake they experiences confusion, disorientation, complete lack of energy , and lack of emotions.

Hmmm It's sort of like a person who watches too much reality TV.
Well at least Nicole doesn't have to go through all the madness that the world has to offer. I think considering the way illness works, all politicians need to catch it. If we can give the politicians this Sleeping Beauty Disease I am confident no Prince Charming would ever appear to awaken them.

The End Of Christmas Cards

I wonder if the tradition of sending Christmas cards is dying, maybe nearly dead. I think it might be. It's another end for tradition killed by technology and changing taste. Whether it's a good thing Christmas cards are disappearing is a matter of taste, I suppose. But just as the old postal system, snail mail as the electronic tech crowd derisively named it years ago, dies so will mailing Christmas cards.

I did just mail out some myself, though in a lower volume than last year. Whittling the list and not sending cards to those people who don't return the greetings I send is shrinking my card list. I did notice a decline in cards received the past few years. People to whom I send cards don't always respond with a card of their own, a message that, "We don't do Christmas cards anymore". A few do send me electronic cards, but those have little appeal to me. They are too easy to send. Without the investment of time and effort in sending a Christmas greeting the greeting itself loses appeal. And a card in the mail is tangible, can be held in the had and stored as a memory. Electronic cards are here in an instant and just as quickly forgotten.

I think that our easy to use technology discourages such quaint , old traditions as sending Christmas cards. I remember my dad, who was the family member who sent the Christmas cards, sitting at the kitchen table in late November, cards, stamps and his list of the names and addresses of past recipients and senders who were to receive a card that year. It was a task of labor and endurance that took more time than most of us would want to spend in this age of instant gratification.

I guess many of the Christmas traditions are disappearing. Does anyone kiss under the mistletoe anymore? In our age of environmentalism and political correctness, those artificial trees are no more common than a real, live tree. Traditional Christmas cakes of all types are rarely baked at home anymore and we now avoid fruitcake as if it were a virus. The Christmas stocking... more than half of families don't hang them anymore. I remember as a child walking the neighborhood with a group and singing Christmas carols to both the willing and unwilling neighbors. Try caroling today and you may risk arrest.

Maybe the new, modern Christmas traditions will become as endearing. But I doubt it will for me. It just seems more fun to kiss under the mistletoe than to "Christmas shop" at a mall. Anyway, the good news is we'll probably continue to have Christmas in some from for a long time to come.

Black Friday Weekend Madness

According to a survey conducted by The National Retail Federation of the U.S, apparently we Americans are a nation of sheep...err...greedy sheep at that.

A record 226 million shoppers visited stores and web sites over Black Friday weekend (Thanksgiving Day, Friday, Saturday and Sunday), up from 212 million last year. That's right! The retailers brainwashed that many Americans (about 2/3 of the population) that they had to Christmas shop those days in order to get "sales prices and save money."

This despite the fact that there are many of those "sales" from Thanksgiving day to Christmas day, many of those often offering lower prices than are found on Black Friday weekend.

According to the survey, the average holiday shopper this year spent $398.62 this weekend, up from $365.34 last year. Total spending reached an estimated $52.4 billion. Additionally, shoppers also checked out retailers’ deals online, spending an average of $150.53 on the web – 37.8 percent of their total weekend spending. And "Black Monday" another Christmas sale where the buyer buys on line instead of storming the store gates, set another record. I thought the economy was bad? But 28.7 million people shopped online and at stores on Thanksgiving Day instead of eating their turkey and chatting with crazy Aunt Ethel and Uncle Harry.

You think these maniacs love shopping! Here are 10 ways they amused themselves this year on Black Friday.

Black Friday violence:

1. A Couple Was Hit By A SUV At A Washington Walmart

In the parking lot of a Walmart about 30 miles south of Seattle, a couple in their 40s was run down by a reportedly drunk 71-year-old driver. Both victims had to be rushed to the hospital, but seem to be okay, and the driver was arrested.

2. Two People Were Shot And Wounded At A Tallahassee Walmart

A man and woman were shot in broad daylight in front of a Walmart as a result of a dispute over a parking space. Fortunately, their injuries were not life threatening.

3. A Gun Was Pulled On A Man Who Tried To Cut In Line At A Texas Sears

A potential shopper waiting in line at a San Antonio Sears confronted another shopper when he allegedly cut in line. Shopper 1 confronted Shopper 2 about his perceived line cutting, which Shopper 2 responded to with mocking and a punch to the face of Shopper 1. Shopper 1 then pulled out a gun and everyone scattered.

Shopper 1 was not arrested because he had a permit to carry the gun

4. A Cashier Passed Out At A Kansas City Dick's Sporting Goods

A young cashier at a Dick's Sporting Goods in Kansas City, Missouri, was overwhelmed by all the madness and passed out at her register. She had to be carried out by medics.

5. A Fist fight Broke Out At A South Philadelphia Walmart

In the electronics section of a south Philadelphia Walmart two men came to blows over $200 TV sets. No one was injured, but some customers in the area were knocked down in the brawl.

6. Two Shoppers Were Arrested For Fighting At A Michigan JC Penny

At a mall in Kentwood, Michigan (near Grand Rapids), two shoppers got into a fistfight outside of a J. C. Penny. Police needed to use pepper spray to subdue the shoppers/fighters.

7. A Man Left A 2-Year-Old Boy Outside A Massachusetts Kmart

A 34-year-old man brought his girlfriend's 2-year-old son with him to a Massachusetts Kmart, but left him outside while he shopped flat screen TVs. After exiting the store and being unable to find the child, the man panicked and called a friend to drive him home. Police found the boy sleeping in the man's car in the Kmart's parking lot.

8. Police Were Called Twice To An Illinois Mall

Police were called twice to the CheeryVale Mall in Rockville, Illinois. Both instances were due to fights breaking out that resulted in two men being arrested and two being hospitalized.

9. A 14-Year-Old Boy Was Robbed Outside A Maryland Bed, Bath, & Beyond

Outside a suburban Baltimore mall, a group of five men robbed a 14-year-old boy after he walked out of a Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

10. The Mall of America in Minneapolis Banned Teens From Shopping
This one technically isn't a crime, but it's a prime example of Black Friday Madness. The Mall of America banned teens from shopping all day on Friday unless they accompanied by a parent or an adult. Smart move. Some of those teens love to practice their shoplifting techniques among the masses on Black Friday.

Haha The Christmas spirit on Black Friday may have been aided by a few bottles of spirits some of those shop addicts imbibed. Black Friday shoppers have been known to beat one another and use tasers and pepper spray to get the best deal, and view is as "competition" for good deals. Sigh.... It's enough to make me convert to Islam.

Attacking The Greeters

I don't know if you have any Wal mart stores there, but if you do they probably also have the elderly "greeter" at each of the doors in the store. Greeter at Wal mart is code for untrained, formally retired, inexpensive security guard. Oh, grandpa and granny security. They're using little old ladies and old men to guard against shoplifting. I doubt if granny is going to, or is even capable of wrestling with a shoplifter who exists with stolen goods.

So sometimes a crook will try to sneak out with a bag of stolen good. Well, more than once the thief has shoved or run from the greeter who asks to see the shoppers receipt before exiting. Occasionally there is a physical confrontation. Last December once such incident happened at a New York Wal mart. The employee, 70-year old Grace Suozzi , asked 26-year old Jacquetta Simmons to see receipts for items she was carrying in store bags. After shoving Grace to the ground and pummeling her with punches, Jacqueeta ran out of the store. But employees and customers quickly surrounded her until police arrived. The happy resolution is that today Jacqueeta was found guilty of assault and was was sentenced to five years in prison. Simmons was convicted under the state's "Granny Law," which gives stiffer penalties for an assault on someone 65 or older.

Wal mart greeters have been assaulted more ways that one can catalogue, and almost all of this violence against granny and grandpa has occurred in the past 2 or three years. It's become a norm to hear of these stories and, as a result, we seem not to notice or care what is happening to society. Might this be a reflection of the coarsening of society, the dishonesty of some and the disrespect toward others? As our technology more and more separates us from direct interaction with others, do other people become less "real" to us? Do we more often see them as apart of the electronics we use, rather than as humans we should love and respect?

I am not blaming bad behavior on the proliferation of frivolous technology that separates us from others. But it sure could be one small factor in why the world in which we live is a little less kind and gentle these days.

The Dumbing Of America

A genetics researcher at Stanford University says people are getting less intelligent with each generation because we simply no longer need to be smart to survive. Hmmmmm I'm not a researcher and I can tell that just by observing people today. They mindlessly tweet, watch reality TV, chat endlessly about "nothing" on their phones. They even promote rap music as "art".

Anyway, the researcher guy, Gerald Crabtree, argues that humans may have peaked when they were hunter gatherers who were non verbal and who needed intelligence to find food and shelter. He says human genes have mutated over thousands of years as we shifted to agricultural and city life.  Essentially, because we have it too easy today with too few challenges, we are losing our capacity to think and grow intellectually.

Gerald Crabtree, who is an esteemed professor and researcher of biology and developmental biology, claims the brain drain has been going on for centuries. The brain is mutating, he said, because of advances in society that have made survival less stressful. This has been going on for v centuries and is eroding our intellectual and emotional capabilities. So I guess he is saying that due to advancement sin society that were made by a few select intelligent beings, society as a whole is now able to support and protect the dumb members who would ever have been able to survive in prior times (due to their stupidity). This has an effect of dragging down society as a whole.

It makes sense to me. I have long thought we were becoming a more stupid society as we faced fewer and fewer challenges that would make us smarter and as technology insulates and protects the dumbest. The dumb thrive because technology makes it easy for them and because society as a whole protects them. No wonder the gene pool is watered down each generation. Uh... simply put it is much easier today to be survive while being stupid and to breed more of the stupidity into the gene pool.

In case you disagree with this, I present as evidence of  this contention the names Kardashian and Snookie. How could any society with those idiots call itself a more advanced one.

Thanksgiving Day Shopping

Thanksgiving Day used to be a quiet day with family, eating turkey and pumpkin pie, seeing those relatives you hate but only for a few hours (Anything is tolerable when displayed in short duration). The family would sit in the living room and chat (embarrassing the kids with alleged "cute" stories of their early childhood clumsy ways) and maybe watch the one football game on TV. That was it. There weren't many other options than that. But no more.

Thanksgiving has gone from family to frenzy. There are a multitude of sports and special events on TV, the stores are hawking their Christmas sales even on Thanksgiving Day, and people fly away from Uncle Fred and Aunt Mildred by taking a Thanksgiving vacation far away from family. The biggest day for flying in the U.S. is Thanksgiving Day, and it's not all passengers flying to see relatives on the day. Just as many others are off to ski or frolic apart from the Thanksgiving tradition. Just about everything is open for business on Thanksgiving, to the extent that many families eat their Thanksgiving meal in restaurants.

It's all fine. Holiday traditions change but the most annoying aspect of Thanksgiving today is the retail blitz of their "Christmas sales". A few years ago some retailers switched from the midnight day after Thanksgiving sale to Thanksgiving sales. Now they open at 12 am Thanksgiving morning instead of the day after Thanksgiving. This means mom is at the mall instead of cooking the turkey, chasing after a loss leader sale items amidst the mobs of crazed shoppers who image they have to buy "now" or they won't see a fair price later.

Of course the sales are, by and large, not special. A few days after the crazed Thanksgiving day/night mobs clean the shelves there are more sales just as big as what is offered on Thanksgiving Day. The problems is an addicted shopper forgets that fact and hallucinates that he or she has to buy on Thanksgiving to get the best bargains. Maybe shopping is a new sport and the shoppers see it as a competition. Every year hordes of shoppers are trampled, hit, or otherwise abused physically while fighting over that last sale item on display.

It's not for me. I avoid malls even on normal shopping days. It may be the only "normal" thing I do all year.