Space Commando: you faithfully read this blog and you regularly submit comments! With much gratitude (and excitement that someone may be reading this blog), this post is dedicated to you, my dear, cosmonautic friend.
We play the lottery to get the sensation of risk. We're wired to want this feeling. For early man, hunting was risky and so was moving to new lands to find food. Man has survived as long as he has because he has taken chances.
Today, life is incredibly safe. There's no great challenge to our daily survival. Food is always in the supermarket, water's always in the tap. We wear helmets and seatbelts and there's a pill for everything. But we need challenges, we need the sensation of risk.
Fishermen, loggers and pilots have the most dangerous professions. They do this work to survive but they also do it by choice - in part perhaps for the excitement. These are professional risk-takers. The rest of us lead more simple lives. We get vicarious thrills to get the feeling. We watch films & sports, ride rollercoasters, play video games, buy lottery tickets or frag one another with paintballs. There's a unique place where doers and spectators come together for high-risk thrills: the circus
The professional acrobat takes the risk to make money (to survive) and the spectator pays his money to get the sensation of risk without putting himself in harm's way. It all gets a bit bizarre, at the circus, when things go horribly wrong. The circus is different than any sporting venue. In sports if someone gets injured medics are there on the spot. There's no fooling around or "play" involved. At the circus it's quite the opposite. It's all play, especially when, woops, something goes horribly wrong. If there's anywhere you don't want to get injured it's at the circus. Under the big-top no one will help you - because it's all just "part of the act."
"In the first part of the performance," said fellow circus performer Nicole Antosu, "Vlad held a flammable cocktail in his mouth to spit fire at a burning torch. Somehow, he must have swallowed some of the liquid, because when he burped he triggered an explosion." The Parrot (Accra, Ghana) - 2-8 June 1998
Example 2:
The accident at the touring Royal Russian Circus happened last night in Scariff, Co Clare, a village in western Ireland, in front of about 100 people, most of them children. Police identified the dead performer as a 26-year-old man from Belarus but did not release his name.
Witnesses said the man, dressed in a clown outfit, was hanging from a cage that was being suspended from a hot-air balloon inside the canvas tent. When the balloon exploded in flames, the cage crashed to the ground on top of the man. They said circus workers struggled to lift the cage off the man, but he was pronounced dead at nearby Ennis General Hospital.
The man’s wife, who was also performing at the time, suffered a broken arm, police said."We were all sitting down and they were doing their act. They were up fairly high, but they were doing fine. Next thing, he was down on the ground," said one witness, Hazel Harrington. She said many people in the audience initially thought the falling cage was part of the act. (The Sun Online)
Labels: Circus, lottery, Risk, The Ticket
¶ 4:23 PM 1 Comments
A good omen!
7:29 = 7 & 11
Over Memorial Day weekend TCM was playing some fantastic films so Virginia and I watched a movie marathon:
Action in the North Atlantic - Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey (Must check out more Raymond Massey flicks)Favorite line: "I was shippin' out when your buttons were safety pins"
Objective Burma - Errol Flynn - Terrific, suspenseful film (hmmm... Here's a recipe for Predator - Take a sizeable chunk of Objective Burma and fold in bits of Alien. Inject cast with anabolic steroids and roast with several megatons of nuclear warhead - yeah!)
Also watched Air Force by Howard Hawks. Mesmerizing dawn shots of B17 bombers and the usual Hawks genius for getting you to like characters the moment you see them. Amazing shot of the bomber crew looking down at Pearl Harbor on fire. Unforgettable scene but I tried twice to watch the rest of the film and fell asleep both times. Please don't take offense Mr. Hawks I still dig your movies.
Labels: Action in the North Atlantic, Air Force, Errol Flynn, Howard Hawks, Numerology, Objective Burma, Predator, Raymond Massey, Stalag 17, The Ticket, William Holden
¶ 6:38 AM 2 Comments
According to the lottery industry it's a myth. I found this on the NASPL (North American State and Provincial Lotteries) site:
"Is it true that the odds of winning the lottery are worse than being struck by lightning?
No, even if we just consider the awarding of large jackpots. In 1996 1,136 people won $1,000,000 or more playing North American lotteries. An additional 4,520 won $100,000 or more. By contrast, 91 people were killed by lightning.
In addition, there's no second prize in a lightning strike. In a lottery, you win lesser amounts of money by coming close to the winning numbers. On many games odds of 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 are not uncommon. Lotteries award over $50 million in prizes in North America every day. Lightning isn't nearly that productive."
Notice how they sidestep the question which asks about being struck by lightening. The answer only refers to how many people are killed.
They may be right. Perhaps this is a myth but it should be noted that people are trying to win the lottery by buying tickets. But, most people do their best to avoid Lightning. Lightning is typically around when there are big, scary clouds in the sky and rain too so there's plenty of warning to take shelter. Unless you're Colonel Pickering from Caddyshack, most people tend to avoid the rain (and thunderstorms) by going inside. All things considered I think lightening is doing an extremely well considering this handicap.
Useful tips to avoid Lightning
According to Rocky Lopes of the American Red Cross here's what to do:
"If you hear thunder, you are in danger from lightning,Thunder means that lightning is close enough that it could hit your location at any minute, so you should immediately move indoors or into a hard-topped vehicle and stay there until after the lightning storm ends. The single most important thing to remember is to seek shelter."
You should also:
Avoid tall, isolated objects (such as trees)
Avoid metal objects like wire fences and golf clubs
Avoid using your cell phone outdoors during a storm
Avoid rivers, lakes and streams
Avoid electronics, including telephones and TV sets, as the wires can transmit the lightning
Avoid bathtubs, water faucets and sinks because metal pipes conduct electricity
Finally, if you're in a field and your hair stands on end, it means lightning is about to strike. Stand next to these people at your own risk: Carrot Top, Don King, Jimmy Neutron and Doctor of Doctor & The Medics fame (below)
A lightning bolt can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hotter than the surface of the sun.
A typical lightning bolt is only the size of a Quarter. Lightning looks so much wider because it's so bright
Most lightning strikes average 2 to 3 miles long
A "Positive Giant" can strike the ground up to 20 miles away from the storm. It seems to strike from a clear sky hence it's common name, "A Bolt From The Blue"
If you really want to get struck by lightening play Golf in Florida on a Summer afternoon around 4pm. Our old friend, Colonel "Rat Farts" Pickering, had this one down.
"Lightning strikes biker's penis during toilet break (nicked from news.com.au)
A Croation motorbike rider was knocked unconscious when lightning struck his penis during a roadside toilet break. Metro.co.uk reported Ante Djindjic, 29, escaped relatively unscathed from the incident, suffering only light burns to his chest and arms.
He said: "I don't remember what happened. One minute I was taking a leak and the next thing I knew I was in hospital. "Doctors said the lightning went through my body and because I was wearing rubber boots it earthed itself through my penis." "Thankfully, the doctors said that there would be no lasting effects, and my penis will function normally eventually."
Labels: Doctor and the Medics, Lottery vs. Lightening, ning, The Lottery, The Ticket
¶ 3:26 AM 2 Comments
"What's been going on with The Ticket?" you may ask.
Well the whole thing has been reworked with cover shots and I rummaged to find gems that we'd passed over during previous versions.
Picture lock is this week. Running time 84 minutes. On the money! ¶ 8:23 AM 1 Comments
