While many are ready to divulge a juicy story about the day they won the lottery, not so many are eager to share their stories of lottery defeat. Ohmyafly’s Vanessa Castaneda filmed a story about Will Patterson, local celebrity and lottery enthusiast, and his ill-fated attempt at quick riches. <You can watch the video on facebook>
It’s a tantalizing idea. For two dollars, you get a shot at economic redemption from student-loan-induced poverty.
A chance at living that American cream dream life of self indulgence in which the highways are never clogged with traffic and the stores sell egg nog year round.
That’s one of the reasons why Will Patterson plays almost every day.
“Everything’s against me. The only thing that isn’t against me is the lotto,’ Patterson said outside the Tetco gas station on Stone Oak and Sonterra Blvd.
Last month, Patterson lost his job, and his girlfriend is about to dump him.
He’s not alone. The unemployment rate in America is at 6.7 percent right now, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, although new numbers will be released on January 9th.
Patterson’s game is Instant Bingo. It’s a scratch off that takes at least five minutes to play. You can win as little as two dollars or as much as $30,000.
The odds of winning Instant Bingo are one in 4.2. The top prize odds are one in two million.
Tetco gas station manager Tony says the odds don’t stop hundreds of people playing every week. A few hundred to 600 people buy tickets from his store on average.
Earlier today, a man came in and spent one thousand dollars on lottery tickets, Tony said.
Patterson has spent about $20 this week. And today wasn’t his day to realize a return on his investment.
“Oh…Oh…dammit, “Patterson groaned.
“My thumb hurts…damn scratch off,” he said as he dejectedly slouched in the passenger’s seat of his friend’s car, the loss radiating from his half-lidded eyes which gazed down at the scratch off card he had just flung on the floor in frustration.
Despite his losing streak, Patterson said that if he thinks about playing again, he probably will.
Maybe tomorrow will be your lucky day, Will. Maybe tomorrow.
From watching TV news and reading many mainstream American newspapers, a person could get the idea that the Islamic leaders of the Gaza Strip are to blame for the most recent violence in the region.
November 5, 2008, Israelis broke the cease fire. They crossed the borders and shot thirty rockets at an area in which they said Palestinians were digging a tunnel. Israeli officials said the tunnel was to be used to kidnap an Israeli.
Certainly, the situation is far more complex and involves decades of turmoil. However, journalists should not feed the news beast without adequate research.
Someone please explain to me how killing in the name of an omnipresent omnipotent thing that you can’t prove exists is ever justified.I’m disgusted with the lionization of religious people in novels and country leaders in real life who deflect responsibility for their actions onto an intangible cause.
Yesterday, I read a James Patterson book in which one of the main characters murders a newborn baby for the Catholic Church and is posthumously extolled for his virtue. No, I didn’t buy this book.It was a present.
Originally published in 1980 under the title “Virgin”, the book Cradle and All thematically posits an idea which is dangerous to the progression of a society in which people respect differences of opinion—blind faith.
Patterson writes about two virgins who become pregnant on opposite sides of the globe, one would birth the next Catholic messiah, the other Satan’s child. People race around trying to detect which is which.yada trite yada.
My WTF moment: Rosetti, a devoutly religious main character, steals a newborn baby from a hospital before the mother could even see the child, runs to the edge of a cliff and jumps off with the baby in his arms.
He commits infanticide “on faith”that the baby is evil.
“This is the beast!…All the signs in the prediction of Fatima have been met!” Rosetti screams during the book’s climax.
A priest Justin tells Rosetti to slow his roll and consider the blatantly obvious fact that he’s about to kill a baby. Rosetti doesn’t even have a conflicted internal monologue about the value of a human life, or how he is about to go against his own religion’s moral imperative to not kill. Patterson, you disappoint me.
Rosetti screams at Justin, “You are like doubting Thomas. Must you always see to believe?!”
Is it really so terrible to perceive a full spectrum of perspective about an issue?
The more knowledge you have, the more rational your actions are, and the less likely it is that you will follow the prescribed actions of a person or group of people who want to control a population’s actions for personal gain.
Large corporations have endorsed the book as a thrilling page turner, exposing the idea to a huge population as worthy of a read by big-time journalists.
Patterson family book shelf
The book’s cover flaunts blurbs from New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Miami Herald, and Dallas Morning News.NYTimes alone has an online/print readership of 20 million.LA Times has 5.5 million unique visitors on their website per month.
Certainly, these were paid endorsements, although it is possible that the name recognition had something to do with it. Patterson has sold more than 150 million books worldwide, according to ebookstore.sony.com. I only kept turning the pages, so I could have informed answers to the inevitable barrage of questions from the person who gave it to me.
For exhibiting absurd concepts and a banal plot, Cradle and All gets 1 out of five fruits of knowledge.
On December 13, National Geographic’s Wild aired a story about a dead whale that was found floating in a busy sea port of Taiwan in 2004. Fifty tons of sperm whale were en route to a necropsy through the streets of Taiwan when for no apparent reason, the carcass exploded.
This takes me back to my television reporting class. Professor Berg showed us a report from 1970 about a very similar situation. A whale had washed up on the beach and the towns folk didn’t know what to do with it…so they decided to blow it up. Here’s the video of the report
Within the month of December, some of the basics that my predominantly Catholic, Mexican-American family cling to are: Santa Claus, presents, and women cackling over wine in my mother’s breakfast nook.
Paco de Lucia or Pedro Infante plays in the background. Children of various ages burst through the front door and out the backdoor at random times, pausing only to either grab a marranito from the island, or to let their mother’s chastisements go in one ear and out the other.
“You’d better behave, or Santa isn’t going to bring you any presents,” is usually how that’s phrased.
If and when I have children, I refuse to perpetuate the lie of Santa Claus. Telling children that Santa Claus is coming to town is not not a harmless lie.
The promise of material goods from a fictional entity who makes a judgment call about who is good and bad sends the wrong lesson to children. It tells them that they should only behave according to the standards of important people in their lives when they want something. It also reinforces the idea that good people have a lot of stuff. It is the seed of classism and materialism. Furthermore, what else becomes suspect when they find out you’ve misled them?
I learned something this holiday season when I almost lost someone I love. Taking the time to learn about someone you’re close to, whether it’s by asking them questions or sharing stories about yours, is far more valuable to them than sending them a funny video in their inbox, or giving them a toy. Real, open two-way communication keeps relationships alive.
So, why haven’t we evolved past the idea of Santa? When I posed this question to members of my family, I got a “Don’t be such a grinch you scrooge. It’s just a little white lie that makes it more fun for the kids.”
Or does it just make them really disappointed with the holiday scene later on in life when they don’t have anything substantive to look forward to? Just the obligation to shop.
You don’t need to lie about where stuff comes from to make people feel special. The core idea of family and friends making a seasonal pilgrimage to a place where they can embrace and catch up is a wonderful way to celebrate time away from the daily obligations that separate people.
People are SO much more important than things.
This holiday season, we should have the presence of mind to stop perpetuating traditions that presocialize children to behave in ways which diminish the value of interpersonal communication and place more emphasis on object accumulation than relationship development.
For exhibiting absurd concepts and a banal plot, Cradle and All gets 1 out of five fruits of knowledge.
So, why haven’t we evolved past the idea of Santa? When I posed this question to members of my family, I got a “Don’t be such a grinch you scrooge. It’s just a little white lie that makes it more fun for the kids.”
