{"id":42369,"date":"2018-03-14T01:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T05:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=42369"},"modified":"2018-02-21T14:13:01","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:13:01","slug":"qotd-lotteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/03\/14\/qotd-lotteries\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Lotteries"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>I am not a fan of the scratch-game lottery. It does not provide the same amount of amusement as burning a one-dollar bill. Time it, if you doubt me. You can scratch off a card in three seconds: <em>scritch scritch scritch, ah crap. Please play again!<\/em> But a dollar bill gives you at least 17 seconds of entertainment &mdash; more, if you set off the smoke alarm. Otherwise it&#8217;s the same effect: One dollar has passed from your hand into the great chain of being, and whether it subsequently manifests itself as a Trix bar in the pocket of a state employee or acrid smoke in the kitchen, it&#8217;s all just molecules in the end. And you&#8217;re out a buck.<\/p>\n<p>But! Now the lottery has decided to give you a second chance. You mail in your losing lottery tickets &mdash; at least five duds, please &mdash; and they hold another drawing to confirm that you&#8217;re not only still a loser, but now you&#8217;re out 37 cents for postage.<\/p>\n<p>James Lileks, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/stories\/804\/5210697.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Backfence: A second-chance column for you&#8221;, <em>Star Tribune<\/em><\/a>, 2005-02-01<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am not a fan of the scratch-game lottery. It does not provide the same amount of amusement as burning a one-dollar bill. Time it, if you doubt me. You can scratch off a card in three seconds: scritch scritch scritch, ah crap. Please play again! But a dollar bill gives you at least 17 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,41],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-42369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-quotations","tag-lottery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-b1n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42370,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42369\/revisions\/42370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}