Powerball Mania
It seems like the only thing that people have been talking about over the last few days at least locally, is the insanity that is the 1.5 billion dollar powerball jackpot. This sounds only slightly less impressive when you realize that the cash payout was 900 million… and that the IRS would have claimed at least a third of that before it ever actually got to you. Still however roughly 600 million dollars is a lot of money, more money that I would ever know what to do with. Which is a fact that became more clear as the days went on. I’ve been part of an office pool for years, that I largely look at as “insurance”. Enough people are in said pool that if they hit the numbers there would be a lot of tendered resignations the next day…. and I feel like I would like to at least have that option. If all of those folks walked…. work would be a pretty miserable place to be for awhile. The thing is… for me it is exactly like paying an extra tax and I never really consider what would happen if they actually did win. However when the powerball itself was up this high, I had to actually purchase a handful of tickets for myself.
The thing about holding something in your hand that could potentially make you at least on paper a billionaire, starts you daydreaming a little. However I feel like maybe went in different directions than most people. Quite honestly the only things I could really think of that I would want to do with the money is buy a new gaming rig and a new gaming laptop. I mean there is the usual “lets quit work and do what we want to” pipe dream as well, but that one is probably common among all people. I have no burning desire to buy a bunch of cars, or buy a new lavish and extravagant house. In the grand scheme of things… I life a pretty damned charmed life and how “meager” my lottery daydreams were only served to prove that I guess. Most of the things that I would ultimately end up doing… are already in the realm of possibility for me… well other than the quitting work thing. Even though my brain consistently tries to tell me that I am not… fuck you depression… I guess I really am fairly happy with life in general. Now if someone wanted to give me part of their winnings however…. I wouldn’t say no.
Calm Night
Life affirming message above aside… yesterday was a really really bad day. Nothing truly catastrophic mind you, because there are lots of worse things that could have happened. We have just been dealing with this vendor at work, that seems to keep pulling new requirements out of their ass at the 11th hour. I get really tired of parachuting in and fixing messes, that never needed to be messes in the first place. I have some rage issues, and I always have had them. As a kid I used to push down all the negativity until it eventually erupted and all of that bile and bad blood ended up getting targeted at usually the wrong person. Over the years I have learned to blow off steam in little bits here and there, rather than letting my problems get big enough to cause a thermonuclear explosion. Yesterday however… I came precariously close to losing my shit on a conference call. There was a point at which I just had to stop talking for a little bit… I am not sure how long… but I knew if I continued talking a stream of hate would spew forth in a manner that is just not acceptable in the work place. Within a 45 minute period I had to configure a new reverse proxy server… on the existing application box… configure it… and all the while keep from trying to break the vendor application sharing the same space. I got it done… and then a friend took me out to lunch to get me out of the environment long enough to reset the fuse.
So on the way home from work last night, I stopped by the liquor store to get something that would hopefully cause me to chill out and relax the rest of the evening. I took a red solo cup… because there is just something comforting about them… filled it up one third buttershots, one third baileys, and the last third with milk. If you want to chill out… I highly suggest this drink because after that the world felt nice and warm and fuzzy. After that I had a night where I flitted around games, popping into World of Warcraft and messing with my garrisons and shipyards…. but not really settling on any one character long enough to play much of anything. I eventually popped into voice chat and logged over into Warframe running a few things with Tam and Ashgar until Tam needed to go to class. From there Ash and I attempted to do a bunch of things… the last of which was defeating a planetary boss. The unfortunate thing is that Ash ran out of resurrections… and I barely finished the boss off… but he didn’t get credit which is kinda bullshit. As an Excaliber the best thing about me… is my melee abilities, but unfortunately on that boss that seemed useless. Hopefully when I am not imparied the fight will go a hell of a lot easier, and we can get him through it maybe tonight.