Things they say (paraphrasing / not actually a quote) are “Affix this gold seal to have a chance at Winning $40,000 and also receive our special free gift**”

Then buried 3 paragraphs down it will say something like “Not only will we send you our special free gift, but we will also send exciting new books to you each month. There’s no obligation, simply return the unwanted purchases. In the event you do not return them, we’ll assume you want them, and you’ll be automatically charged on your credit card”

AGAIN – DISCLAIMER. THESE ARE NOT ACTUAL STATEMENTS BY READERS DIGEST — I AM PARAPHRASING EXAMPLES OF WHAT THEY “MIGHT’ SAY IN THEIR SWEEPSTAKES LITERATURE.

But you get the point. Read the fine print. Actually, it’s not really “fine print” either. There is just pages and pages of print.  It gets confusing and information overload takes over. Soon, you find yourself peeling off the gold seal sticker, and affixing it without fully understanding what you are getting into…

But hats off to Readers Digest for running these sweepstakes anyway — atleast people do get lucky and win some money, or a brand new car — and it is free to enter them.

Have you participated in one of these Readers Digest sweepstakes free contest before?

The problem is that often the majority of a winning ticket either results in winning your money back, a $1.00 more, or maybe a free ticket.

These simplistic break-even prizes just let the odds of winning seem a lot lower. When the Lottery Corporation or prints on the back of the ticket “odds of winning” — they include these petty prizes as a winner.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if I scratch a $5 ticket and see “congratulations $5 winner” — How is that really winning anything?

I would much rather discontinue these types of prizes. How many people will buy a scratch ticket in hopes that they will win their money back?  It doesn’t make sense. We’re all out there to at least double our money.

If I could choose between more often losing my money with ADDED chances of getting bigger prizes a lot less frequently, that would be fine for me.

For instance, say I buy 25 tickets over the course of a 3 month period.

Instead of getting 8 winners giving me my money back, I’d prefer to get 1 winner with 8X the money.

But the scratch lottery tickets that would do that would inevitably cause people to play less often.  If you won one big prize out of every 25 tickets, you’d probably be less likely to buy 25 more tickets over the next 3 month period.

So I guess, this system is by design. They want you to get the illusion that by winning more often, that the big one is just around the corner.

Moral of the story? When you’re feeling lucky, play the number drawn lotteries, like the Pick 6, or Lotto 6/49, etc. These ones atleast will net you a few million dollars if you win big. Unlike the scratch off tickets where the largest prize is something like $25,000 or so, and there are usually only a few big prizes in existence for that particular ticket.

What do you think?

Would you rather win less often, but bigger prizes?

OR

Would you rather win more often, but much smaller prizes?

The dinner out, and chocolates, shows that you’re not creative, and very predictable.  It’s like getting a new “tie” for fathers day — been there, done that, no more.

So this Valentine’s Day, if diamonds are too pricey, there is plenty that can be done for $200 or less. Here is some gift ideas for hubby’s trying to do something a little different for their wife.

Night in a hotel

This is an outing, but if you get a nice hotel room that has a nice skyline view of the city, it can be a nice change of pace. Waking up with breakfast served to both of you in the morning, is nice.

Day at the spa

Every woman likes to get pampered at the spa. Nails done, facial makeover, massage, sauna — it costs $100 to $200, and they normally don’t like to ask for money for this purpose.  So take the initiative and get her a gift certificate at a local full-service spa.

Order some cutsy “lover” gift online

Have it sent to the office. It comes in a brown box, no one will know what it is… this way you can get the Valentine’s Day gift and advance and surprise her with it.  It can be sexual, or just playfully romantic, like a stuffed bear that says I love you, or separating heart keychain where each of you get a 1/2 of the heart. There are many things to choose from.

This should get you thinking along the right lines.  Just run the following “gift” test:

a) Is it something out of the ordinary?

b) Does it focus on “her”

c) Is it creative?

d) Is it something you both can enjoy or gain benefit from in some way?
(the spa idea, helps her to feel pretty, and be at her best for you, so that idea counts)

If it meets these basic requirements, it’s probably going to be an appreciated Valentine’s Day gift.

On Christmas Day, almost everything in our neighborhood was closed, with the exception of the local 7-11 convenience store.  I went to the store at 10am to try and grab the last issue of any newspapers with boxing day flyers that may be left.

Inside the store, was a man who was carrying all sorts of merchandise and had a rushed look on this face. In his arms, he had really strange things, like pens, pencils, notepads, scotch tape, magazines, a novel, and other assorted items. He was at the counter asking the clerk for things, and pointing wildly at anything that caught his attention.

His conversation with the clerk went something like this:

Shopper: “What’s that, over there? A keychain?  Let me see? Ok, yes, I’ll take two of those. How about those disposable cameras, how much are they?”

Clerk: “$8.99 each sir”

Shopper: “Ok, give me one of those. How about those stuffed animals on the top shelf”

The clerk was less than amused (suppose he was paid hourly and didn’t want to work in the first place.

Clerk: “This one is $15.49 and this other one is $12.99″

Shopper: “Ok, I’ll take the one for $12.99. Do you have any other toys or anything else?”

Clerk: “Sorry, sir, no only what  you see”

Shopper: “Ok, I’ll take some lottery tickets then”

Clerk: “Which ones?”

Shopper: “Give me $50 worth of assorted ones.. Oh! Batteries, I need batteries too..”

…and on and on it went..

He was on a last minute shopping spree at 7-11 on Christmas day, at around 10am in the morning. Spending about $200 in various merchandise.

Now I wonder, what was his story?  Why would anyone wait to shop for presents at 10am Christmas Day?

Some possibilities could be:

a) His house had caught fire the day before, they were moved to a hotel Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning he ran out to try and buy whatever he could to piece together some sort of Christmas for his family.

b) In order to hide his Christmas presents from his family, he had them all stored in the trunk of his car, but on Christmas Eve after the kids were asleep, he went out to the car, but the car was no longer in the driveway. Some thief stole it, which in turn, left him without presents to give to his kids

c) He is divorced and his ex-wife told him a month ago, that he could not see the kids this Christmas because of the restraining order she has on him,  and at the last minute she broke down on Christmas morning and said “ok, the kids are asking for you. You can come over for an hour with any presents you have, see the kids, and then leave..” Which caused him to run around at the last minute buying things.

d) He was an inmate at Jail, got released Christmas Day, at 7am, and he had 3 hours to do his shopping the best he could, so he could go visit his family.

e) He took a flight, and arrived at 6pm Christmas Eve, but his luggage was missing with all the gifts.  After spending 4 or 5 hours on the phone with the airline trying to find his lost luggage, he finally gave up and went to bed. After trying to call them again in the morning, he discovered that the luggage still hadn’t been found, so he was buying whatever gifts he could, so that Christmas would still exist.

f) His family went over to visit some old long time friends of his on Christmas morning, and to their surprise, they admitted that there were no gifts under the tree for their kids. Feeling horrible, he said he would be right back, and was trying to put together some sort of last minute Christmas for this needy family.

g) He was a psycopath or mentally disturbed person who escaped a local hospital Chrismas morning, and was trying to buy a collection of last minute Christmas gifts, with the intention of having a cab bring him to his ex-wife’s home where his kids are..

The reasons for this type of  last minute Christmas Shopping could be endless..

Do you have any more scenarios that could be true for something like this? If so, I’d love to hear them!

Instead, I’m referring to people who don’t grasp the concept on where to put the snow!

NO, it is not polite to throw it onto your neighbor’s yard.

NO, it is not morally, ethnically and sometimes (not legally) acceptable to throw it onto the street!

It is this last point that I have a huge problem with.. I constantly see people who shovel their sidewalks and driveways and throw it onto the street.

Let’s analyze this sudden loss of common sense.  You don’t want snow on your driveway, so it is easier for you to drive on.. Yet it seems perfectly fine for you to add extra snow to the common roadway where your neighbors, and yourself included will be driving regularily on..

If you talk to one of these snow violators, they’ll say “well the snow plow will get it”.

REALLY? When? Within 2 minutes of you adding snow to the street?  Or 2 hours? or 2 days?

LEAVE THE SNOW ON YOUR OWN YARD.

Don’t give it to your neighbors to deal with. Don’t give it to the public street so we all have to drive over it.

These people are complete morons, and I cannot understand why such stupid, thoughtless, ignorant people exist in our society.

You’re looking at the sandwich, and it “looks right”, but there is something in the taste from your plate, that just kind of doesn’t make things taste fresh or spectacular?

There are all kinds of little things that a lazy chef or short order cook will do, that translates into your plate not making your taste buds happy. I’ll talk about one meal, and we’ll see how many ways you can ruin it.

First of all, let’s quickly talk about what makes a clubhouse sandwich and fries:

Bread, lettuce, bacon, tomato, chicken (or turkey), cheese, mayo, margarine, french fries.

Simple right? Put it all together, and you have a club house and fries.

WRONG.

1) Bread — Before you toast the bread, was it fresh? Often it sits stale in a refrigerator or a counter and starts to form little white stale circles after awhile. No there is no mold on the bread, but the composition of the bread has changed, thereby changing the flavor slightly. Toast the bread, and what’s that? The toaster was set too high, or you didn’t watch it in time? Ok, scrape off the burnt parts.. the customer will never know. The problem with scraping off burnt parts, is that little flecks of the burnt bread will still be on the top layer. Thinly enough that the eye can’t see them, but the mouth and tongue zero in on them. The cook may say “hey, the sandwich looks ok” — yes, but what about the taste you idiot? If you burnt your own bread, I hardly doubt you’d eat it. You’d throw it away and make your own fresh toast again. Why doesn’t the customer, who is paying a premium for his meal get the same treatment?

2) Margarine and Mayo. Caking on the margarine, vs thinly spreading it evenly can leave gobs of margarine in your mouth, which takes away flavors from the rest of the sandwich. Just because the cook is in a hurry to get your darned sandwich outta the kitchen doesn’t mean he or she has to send substandard product out. Take the extra 1/2 second to spread the bread with margarine and mayo evenly. Almost like you are making a sandwich out of love for your spouse. Again, customers are not cows at a trough. The way something tastes is very evident. Want them to crave your clubhouse sandwich and come back for more another time? THEN MAKE IT PROPERLY, with care and attention!

3) Lettuce. Very few customers will open and dissect their sandwich and examine each individual component. So that piece of lettuce that was browning near the stem, or the unwashed lettuce with a couple of tiny bugs on it… Yes, they will end up eating it, but the flavor will be sour, taste a little off… and they won’t be able to say “hmm. that lettuce didn’t taste right”.. instead, they will say, “I don’t know what it is about this sandwich, but it doesn’t taste very good”. Each component regardless of how unimportant you may think it is.. adds to the overall taste of the entire thing. Start with fresh clean lettuce, and you instantly change a mediocre sloppy clubhouse into something to be craved and desired next time this customer thinks about coming back to your establishment.

3) Tomatoes. Many short order cooks will pre-slice tomatoes to save them time in the kitchen. These tomatos will be held in a refrigerated state. Do you realize that a tomato is a living organism? This is why a tomato will still ripen even after it is pulled from the vine. So.. when you preslice tomatoes and hold them in the refrigerator, you’ve basically killed the tomato, disrupted its organic architecture, and it begins to rot at a very slow pace. But any type of rot translates into poor taste. I’ve seen tomato slices pulled from a refrigerator that no longer have their crispness. Look at the membranes, they turn translucent and spiney. Put this partially rotting slice of tomato in your mouth, and the flavor is very pungent, over-ripe tasting, and gross. The cook saved 2 seconds by not having to give you a fresh slice, because thats how long it takes to cut a slice from a large tomato. Idiots, I have no idea why a couple extra seconds is worth ruining a sandwich.

4) Bacon. Is it fresh, or was it cooked 4 days ago? Was the bacon deep fried, or fried on a grill top? Deep fried bacon may look cooked evenly, but you’re getting extra layers of grease from the deep fryer with all other kinds of flavors that do not belong to the taste of bacon. Why not just take a teaspoon of deep fryer oil and drizzle it over the sandwich? It’s the same thing. Just because the bacon looks as being cooked — YOU’RE ADDING FLAVOR that doesn’t belong, and will ruin a sandwich.

5) Cheese. Is it processed, was it pulled out of a wrapper? Do you know how many additives and preservatives are added to pre-sliced pre-wrapped cheese? Don’t believe it? Try and melt a piece of individually wrapped processed cheese and see what happens to it. Why not have a nice brick of cheddar cheese and cut a fresh slice off it? You’d like that flavor, so don’t you think your customer would like that too?

6) Fries. Are they fresh or frozen? Every eat fresh cut NY Fries? They made a huge franchise chain out of that simple concept. No, instead, everyone wants to buy the precut precooked frozen fries because they keep longer and cook faster. But what about flavor?

If you notice how many times I use the word flavor? Flavor is EVERYTHING!

So the clubhouse & fries gets served to your customers, and if you’ve made ANY of these common mistakes in the kitchen, the customer eats the meal and when a friend or family member at the table says “so, how was yours?” ”

Ummm it wasn’t all that great. I don’t think I’d order it again” you say.

STOP BEING LAZY IN RESTAURANT KITCHENS. TAKE PRIDE IN YOUR WORK, AND MAKE THE SANDWICH AS IF IT WAS YOUR OWN!

Nothing worse than paying a premium price for a clubhouse and fries, and the chef or short order cook takes shortcuts and doesn’t pay attention to that extra tender loving care to produce an outstanding product.

By the way.. add a little salt and pepper to that freshly sliced tomato. A hint of those will make the whole sandwich come together quite nicely. Many people won’t dissect their sandwich to do it themselves. As a chef, a little spice is very nice.

Comments anyone?

You can also tell how much time someone has spent decorating a tree. For those that don’t care, we’ve all seen the tree with some garland on it, a bunch of red & blue bulb ornaments, some tinsel, a star, and that’s it..

That is a very plain way of decorating a Christmas tree.

However, there are little things you can do to really dress up your holiday tree. One thing to note, is that while uniformity is important for the Christmas lights you put on it — NOT SO for the ornaments and decorations!

For instance, putting the odd candy cane on your tree’s branches looks nice. Covering the tree in candy canes from top to bottom in an even spread, ruins in the look. This is an example where “less” becomes MORE in the end. Carefully choosing which items to place, where you place them, and how often you place them, quickly shows if you’re an amateur or a pro…

Having a nice variety of tree ornaments looks really nice. Things like monogrammed knitted decorations. Or a little teddybear holding a small “Merry Christmas” sign. May it worthwhile for someone to step up close to your tree and search around looking at all the little things you’ve added.

If you can stand 10 feet from a tree, glance at it from top to bottom in 3 seconds and think you’ve taken it all in, then in my opinion, the tree is very simplified and the loving care that should go into it, is just not there.

Now, I am not suggesting that you go out and spend $300 to $500 worth of expensive ornaments to decorate your tree. Instead, since we are going to be decorating a tree every year that we’re still alive, this gives you a great opportunity to accumulate things over time.

Make it a point to buy 1 or 2 really nice ornaments every year. Or better yet, if you have children, and they want to buy you something for $5 or $10 as a gift to mom and dad, let them pick out an ornament to buy for the tree. After the kids grow up and leave home, the ornaments will still be there, and the special meaning that they have will be present every Christmas whether they are home for the holidays or not.

About 15 years ago, we received a monogrammed glass bulb, with our company name on it from a customer who offered us a thank you gift once. We still have that decoration and every year we hang it on our tree, because it was given to us as a gift of kindess, and it was unexpected and very appreciated.

If you really think about what a Christmas tree represents, and how much love, kindness and caring it is suppose to encourage, then I ask you.

WHY DO PEOPLE BUY A BOX OF “35″ CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTS.. and stick them on it, willy-nilly without having any special thought to it?

The idea is not to just decorate a tree.

The idea is to decorate a tree, from the heart, put something special into it, (and on it).. stand back, and look at all the little things that together, make a wonderful tree.

Box of 35 ornament bulbs? Not for my tree thank you.

By the way, no matter what, I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

On the other hand, Lotto 6/49 (Pick 6) is played with 1 to 49 numbers that are drawn. To win a large prize, you usually have to pick only 6…

So the question is: WHY WOULD ANYONE PLAY KENO?

Really.. why would they play keno if the 6/49 payouts and chance of winning are much higher? Instead of 80 numbers, you are only dealing with 49. Massive mathematical advantages to that..

So, if you are going to wager a $1 bet against 6/49 (or Pick 6), you instantly have a lot better odds of walking away with a jackpot prize vs Keno.

Now where I live, the top prize in Keno is $100,000 — However the top prize in 6/49 around $5,000,000

So why would anyone in their right frame of mind play Keno? There is only one answer.. Simply put.. Keno draws every 5 minutes, and Lotto 6/49 only draws twice week.

People love instant gratification. They love the dopamine to their brains when they have a “chance” every 5 minutes. So it is that chemical reaction in the brain that causes people to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in wasted Keno gambling.

Now I would end this blog post a certain way, but unfortunately my Keno numbers are coming up, and I have to pay attention to them… (Yes, the right side of my brain says have fun playing Keno, meanwhile my left side.. says … idiot. Just be patient and concentrate on the 6/49 draw)

#1 Good Food

Seems like common sense, naturally you will want to provide good food — but what does that mean? For starters, you NEVER EVER want to try new recipes that you’ve downloaded off the internet, tried to make, and hope they work. This is not a time to try new things incase they don’t work. If you want to try something new, make it days in advance. Feed your family, friends, and yourself, and taste it well ahead of time. If you’re happy with how it came out, only then, should you put it on the “menu” for the Christmas party or holiday event.

There is nothing worse than someone who has a great idea, buys all the groceries to produce something they think will work, and having it become a complete flop at a party when things go wrong. Don’t risk the embarassment of trying something new at the last minute. Any new recipe, whether it is an appetizer, a main course, or even a snack, which needs some getting use to.. is a definate NO NO, when you have a large gathering of people coming to test it.

If you want to try something new, make it a week or two in advance. Eat it yourself. Serve it to your immediate friends and family. Get their opinion. Be sure that you have the preparation method completely down pat, and fully understand how long it takes, how long the item “holds” under heat lamps, or in the oven etc.

If you are hosting a Christmas or Holiday office party.. Now is NOT the time to play around and experiment, because there is a huge chance things may not go as planned.

Pre-test, and pre-sample everything way ahead of time, so you’re definately sure that come the Christmas party or event, things will work out perfectly.

#2 Mixes — Soda pop and more

If you are running a Christmas / Office party or event, you definately want to have enough mixes on hand. Everyone can bring in their own beer, or alcohol beverage, but many will depend on you having the mixes available. If you buy a couple gallons (2L) of coke, and a couple gallons of Diet Coke (2L) and hoping that it will be “enough”. You are doing your guests an unjustice. This stuff, as long as it is not opened, DOES NOT SPOIL EASILY.. So it makes sense to have extra on hand — “more than you need”… after the Christmas / Holiday office party is over — the extra remaining is still useful. It is a lot better to have double what you need, than to have “not enough” when it comes to mixes… Most people will bring a bottle, but they kind of assume you’ll have enough Coke and Diet Coke on hand.. so buy double what you think you will need.

#3 – SNACKS

Now most of you will have a dinner, or some major appetizers available. But there are many who are expecting (and wanting nothing more than) some snacks. Potato chips, pretzels, a party mix. Again, this stuff is relatively cheap. Stock up on it. Usually it comes in vaccuum sealed bags, and has a shelf life of 6 months or more, so why skimp now? Having plenty of snacks that can be ripped open “on hand” will show that you’re prepared, and will make the night go by that much more smoothly.

#4 – ENTERTAINMENT / MUSIC

Some thought has to be put into this.. Nothing worse than a bunch of people grouped together, and very little thought has been spent into the entertainment / music aspect. Have your stereo ready, willing and able to put out the tunes to keep people hopping. Do you have your CD’s, DVD’s and MP3’s on the ready? Nothing worse than dead silence in the middle of the night when someone is fooling around with the stereo. People that attend your Christmas / Holiday office party want fun. They want the music to take care of itself, and to be predominate. Don’t forget extra special attention on this point.

#5 – Washrooms and toilet paper.

I can’t begin to tell you the amount of Christmas / Office Holiday Parties I’ve been to, where the washroom becomes the after thought. It is vitally important that your washroom is fully stocked, and has a spare roll, ready to be used, so that no one has to come up to you and ask you for assistance in this area. This is one of the most last-thought of logistics of any Christmas or office holiday party, but I feel it is one of the most important. Pay special attention here.. most people treat it like an after-thought.

#6 – Parking. If you are expecting a lot of people to attend, one of the easiest things you can do is move your vehicle up the street so that the true guests and park without worry.

#7 – GET HELP or VOLUNTEERS

While you’re completely busy trying to put this Christmas / Holiday office party togther, always remember, that there is someone who is ready, willing and able, to try and help out. In this case, let them try.

With these tips and pointers, I do not doubt that your holiday / oiffice Christmas will be a success…

TREES IN OUR HOUSES!!

What other part of nature will be next? Rocks and stones in our homes? Mud, dirt, or Turf grass?

Leave the outside where it should be…. OUTSIDE. Many fresh Christmas trees take 5 to 7 years to grow. Then we do we do? Cut them down, throw tinsel on them and call it a holiday.

How would you feel if someone cut off your leg, threw tinsel on it, and said it was a holiday?

I think the symbolic reference of a Christmas or holiday tree is important. So use symbolic materials to do it.. In the green way of thinking, we should use the same artificial tree very year. It is not uncommon to have an artificial tree last 10 years or more.

Do you use real or artificial? Have you tried both? I’d be interested in hearing from someone that use to use real, and then switched to artificial, or vice-versa.

Has anyone else realized how strange and ironic this is?

I have nothing against the new President-elect. Infact, I think it is way overdue that the USA have a black president or a female president.

But the Osama and Obama thing is just too strange. I haven’t heard anything in the media about it. When you listen to it this way, doesn’t it seem weird to you? An Obama looking for an Osama?

The name similarity strikes me as funny. So what is the meaning behind it? Probably nothing… Or is it?

Anyway, it’s time that we do pay attention to this phenomenon, and take the time to wonder… Is this nature taking its course, or is this some sort of weird planned event that none of us is privy to?

When will the headlines come out? Where they say “Obama targets Osama?” — See? In print it doesn’t look normal…

I totally believe it is not just me.. it’s quite obvious at that this is an issue, where life is funny, and we need to pay attention to the details.

In short…

It’s an opportunist moment by the scattered minority parties who are using this as a “leg up” during troubled political times.

Stephen Harper didn’t sell the country out. There is no massive trouble for Canada brewing… But on a political front, its time to try and stir the pot and start some trouble. If these 3 parties are successful, they will gain recognition for their efforts.

If they are unsuccessful, it is nothing more than old newsworthy stories that have found themselves sitting in a blue box or blue recycling bag.

Is Canada’s government in trouble?

I hardly think so… So the new accord signed by the NDP, Liberals, and Bloc Québécois, sounds like major news.. but the point is to do nothing more than show that Stephan Harper should know his limits.

Think of it..

If you were a party not in power, and you put every living day towards a career in Politics… you entire future is at stake.. Any opportunity that presented itself.. wouldn’t you consider making the moment all it could be?

There is nothing wrong with the newly elected Conservatives — but the 3 remaining opposition parties have found a way to stand out, be counted, and to threaten the House of Commons itself.

Before you start reading tag lines, and begin making your own decisions.. remember one thing..

Has Canada changed majorly for you (other than GST being lowered from 7% to 5% as Prime Minister Stephan Harper promised?)

Why should any of us support this new Coalition Government/Accord? It isn’t in our countrys interest to support anyone other than the newly elected Government that were voted in during our 2008 Election.

If you have a Wordpress blog, and you don’t get spam.. it means that you’re not popular. This is the one and only time that spam serves a purpose…

There are spammers out there that run spiders who roam around the internet looking for Wordpress blogs. If they find one, they attempt to leave a “spam comment” in order to advertise a URL.

(In this day and age, I wonder why they bother. Spam is filtered by newer versions of Wordpress anyway)

But if you do write a daily blog, and get your dose of spam, then it means… you’re popular. If spammers find you, so can the rest of the world. It’s actually a compliment when a spammer’s bot writes (or tries to write) on your blog.

I am proud to say, that daily I DO get spam comments. Naturally I do filter them out. What I am really hoping for.. and crossing my fingers for.. is those few people who do read my dribble and have a legitimate response..

So here it is…

IF YOU ARE READING THIS (AND YES I AM YELLING)

…I would love to hear from you. Register and make a comment to my blog. Let’s see if anyone is out there. Don’t pass up this opportunity.

Do you have your own Wordpress blog? Have you received spam comments?

Surely I’m not the only one out there…

Or am I?

Now, I myself, pay for my BEV subscription every month, so I am not affected.

However, those satellite FTA people who have been using Viewsat and Coolsat receivers that previously decoded Nagra 2 (Nagravision 2) since 2005, now are running around wondering what they are going to do..

The truth is, that these temporary viewsat and coolsat binary firmware fixes (bin file), are exactly that — temporary. How could you feel confident watching TV for a couple days, and then having to download a new fix for your receiver?

I don’t understand why people would invest so much time and effort into trying to get a fix. Isn’t your time worth something?

Now they claim that people are already out there trying to get a hack for nagra 3. Everyday they are checking all the fta forums, hoping and waiting.

Now I do agree the cost of having a satellite subscription is probably 2X as expensive as it should be. Mostly because I read somewhere that over 2 million people illegally decode satellite signals (atleast under the old nagravision encryption scheme) at any given time.

Well perhaps if satellite providers were to charge 50% of what the current retail rate is now, for TV subscription, and they would give everyone 100% of the full channel offering, that includes pay-per-view and the porn channels… Guess what? I hardly doubt 2 million people would bother to try and obtain satellite TV illegally.

That would be more money in their pocket. Less worry about devising new encryption schemes. Less time policing people, taking them to court, etc.

It’s similar to the argument “legalize marijuiana” — if it was legal, there would be less crime, and you could tax it.

Well if indeed over 2 million people are waiting for a nagra 3 fix for their FTA satellite receiver bin files, why not take this time to talk to these people and win them over somehow?

Sounds like a lot of business ready and ripe for the BEV and DN (dishnet) marketing team to sell them on the idea while their receivers are down.

WRONG.

Casinos, lottery corporations, and the like, have spent expensive money from people like www.gtech.com to ensure that their number picking server is choosing unbiased and unpredictable numbers through true RNG (Random Number Generation).

Yes, patterns will materialize with KENO. But guess what? They are random patterns. To the human eye and brain, we’ll associate random patterns with logical patterns. We’ll figure that the computer must be locked into some mode that is generating patterns and if we could only figure out the pattern and the frequency, we’ll dominate Keno.

Not true. Well, actually a correction. It was TRUE in the earlier days of Keno. You can read news articles from many years back, where random number generation was based on the time cycles of the computer when it was switched on, and everytime the computer was switched off and turned back on again, the same random number sequences would produce predictive random numbers.

But that was identified, and corrected, and is no longer present in today’s society.

Similarily, cooked potato chips may have a burned or bruised marking on them. If you sift through 5,000 bags of chips and examine each one, you may eventually find one that has the marking of the Virgin Mary, Jesus, or even a NIKE symbol.

Does this mean that you’ve found something sacred? No, it just means that if you look at randomness often enough, eventually random patterns will emerge, and as humans we can identify them. But all you are really doing is identifying something totally random that happened to produce a pattern.

So when you are losing your shirt over the long term playing KENO, keep in mind you are competing with a random machine. Randomly, you WILL win. However, randomly you WILL lose too. Keno is suppose to be an entertaining game, for FUN, with the chance of winning a random prize.

If you feel that if you play the game enough, and try to beat the system — well the long term odds will get you to lose money, and the keno operators will eventually profit from your failed investments.

I still play KENO, but with a very different attitude now. I’ll throw a couple bucks at the system, but no longer will I try and capture patterns. I’ve analyzed it enough and done research. I think its funny when I sit in a public gambling establishment and hear people freak out and exclaim “wow! Look! See!! 56 came up again! Make sure you put that number on the ticket.”

In true random number theory, 56 can come up 30 times in a row. But then again, it can stop coming up for the next 30 times. There is no rhyme, reason, or pattern to why KENO numbers come up.

If you’d like to read a little more about the history of KENO, I recommend this website

Sorry if I’ve burst your bubble where you had hoped to one day dominate Keno patterns. It isn’t possible. But don’t you feel better being well informed?