It’s hell on earth right now in Maryland’s lottery commission headquarters, where three- and four-digit strings of the same integer have been striking with troubling frequency.
The culprits?
Have yinz strings no shame?
According to the guy, “Business is off at a lot of bars and restaurants where games are played.” Maryland’s smoking ban, which went into effect last February, inhabits its own, wholly unrelated bubble universe.
In other lottery news, nobody still seems to know who wrote the Pennsylvania Lottery’s theme song, but I’m on the case. This has to be one of the most useful tunes ever composed, as it’s guaranteed to instantly obliterate any other melody you may be suffering from, no matter how catchy. Look for a short documentary on this important issue coming in 2009.
UPDATE 12/14/08
I talked to my mom tonight. She slipped on a wet step and injured herself recently (not badly, but badly enough that she can’t drive for a few weeks) and so was unable to take my grandpa on their traditional West Virginia gambling trip for his birthday yesterday, but it all worked out. Today, my grandpa got a call from the Healthland where my aunt works saying he won $3000 in the PA lottery.
Drum roll, please…
He played 222!
UPDATE 12/20/08
In 2003, John Allen and I visited the Westinghouse Museum in Wilmerding, across the street from which lived a curious fellow who identified himself as “Deocka”. We asked Deocka about paranormal and/or mysterious doings in Wilmerding, to which he replied, “Yeah, you look like you’re into that witchy-poo stuff.” Deocka went on to tell us about, among other things, the “shooting stars” witnessed frequently in the skies above Wilmerding, the forced drugging of his neighbors, and his lovable miniature chihuahua, Taco.
Double-Tongued Dictionary defines “witchy-poo” as,
n. a person perceived as espousing false or popular notions of witches or Wiccan beliefs; a fluffy-bunny; (attributively) showing characteristics of such notions or espousing a vague non-denominational spiritualism; woo-woo.
Subjects: English, Derogatory, Slang
Etymological Note: Probably from the character of Witchiepoo played by Billie Hayes on the children’s television show H.R. Pufnstuf starting in 1969.
This morning, John Allen sent me an email titled “Deocka’s Witchypoo Car,” containing a cell phone photo Ioz took of a car’s “WCHYPOO” license plate. A search for the string “Wilmerding UFO” turned up this account from a decade ago, in which an orb-like doodad interacts with a “contrail” formation, and which includes a nifty population statistic.
On Tuesday, November 24, 1998, at about 3 p.m., a motorist in Wilmerding, Pa. (population 2,222), a town on Highway 130 just east of Pittsburgh, noticed two contrails in the blue sky as he drove along. The contrails formed “a perfect X.” Pulling over to the side of the road, he left his car “and noticed a silver-gray object (like the fuselage of a helicopter) that rose straight up from the contrails and quickly speeded through the sky above them. It then shot straight down into the contrails and then it was gone from sight. The object displayed no contrail.” (Many thanks to Pennsylvania ufologist Stan Gordon for these reports.)
That’s Wilmerding for ya!
Tags: 11-11, 11/11, 666, 666 Cough Syrup, Maryland Clean Indoor Air Act, Maryland Lottery, Maryland smoking ban, Number of the Beast, PA Lottery theme song, Stan Gordon, Too Many Lottery Winners, Westinghouse Museum, Wilmerding, witchy-poo
you are right about the pa lottery song. i think it was composed by wagner as the original leitmotiv for Siegfried, but abandoned because he thought it to sonically violent. really though. they are quite similar.
on another note, a short documentary can’t be a feature.
you know another good one is the doomsday dark empire NFL game theme commercial break transition music.
Dude, it is similar. That’s awesome. Thanks for catching my gaffes, too. What is the NFL commercial break music reminiscent of, besides primordial horror?