The Happiness Lottery

People who win lotteries are generally stupid bogans. They stand there with their novelty oversized cheque looking confused and when asked what they intend to do with the millions they generally have plans no greater than paying off their mortgage and buying a campervan. Then they go on to say how they intend to keep their job at the cannery and how they won’t let the lottery change things too much. So why the hell did they bother entering the lottery in the first place?

There are great things you could do with millions of dollars but the tragedy is most lottery winners are too idiotic to do anything that interesting. Normally they just buy some tacky house, develop a substance abuse problem, get ripped off by some con artist and spend the rest on lawyers when getting a divorce. Then they have the temerity to bitch about how the money didn’t bring them happiness.

My theory is that we should have an alternate lottery which rather than dolling out cash prizes delivers winners happiness. Maybe as a prize the winner could press the button when they blow up some massive building – who hasn’t wanted to do that? Perhaps they could give the cannery worker some noise cancelling head phones and an iPod so that they could listen to all their favourite country and western songs during their working day. Or why not just pimp the winner’s Gemini?

These people aren’t equipped to deal with millions of dollars. So why waste all that cash when we could just give them a couple of banjos, a flash new trailer or a special guest appearance on Neighbours? No doubt they would end up far happier.

Not so innocent?

This old man, he played one
He played knick-knack on my thumb
With a knick-knack, paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home.

All through my childhood I never really paid that much attention to the lyrics but looking back this song appears highly dubious. Let’s break it down.

I can’t say for sure what knick-knack is but apparently it involves an old man touching various body parts of a child. Is he a paedophile? Quite possibly.

After doing this the old man likes to whack Irishmen in some clearly racist attack.

He then gives a dog a bone. While some think this is a redeeming feature of the old man, I argue that he probably did not act out of kindness but to insinuate that the poor paddy lying on the ground bleeding is lower than a dog. Others believe he "gives the dog a bone" in an act of bestiality although I truly hope this is not the case.

After doing this the old man celebrates his misdeeds by having far too many beers and getting drunk to the point where he must roll home.

Which leads me to the question – why were we singing nursery rhymes about a racist, drunk, violent paedophile? I guess the tune was kind of catchy.

Improving Horse Racing

The last entry got me thinking about horse racing and as I didn't really have anything to do I thought I would send a letter to the CEO of the AJC.

16/06/09

Mr Darren Pearce
Australian Jockey Club
Royal Randwick

Dear Darren,

I’ve been trying to get in to horse racing but sadly I just don’t find it that interesting. Rather than walk away from the sport of kings I thought I would offer some suggestions on ways in which you could potentially liven things up.

While I applaud you for providing job opportunities to little people with funny, high-pitched voices, I think you need to seriously look at who you get to ride the horses. People came out in force to watch Sonny Bill Williams box. I’m sure they’d do the same if he were mounted on a steed. And why just get the Paris Hilton to faff about drinking champagne when you could put her on the favourite in Race 6? I hear people are fascinated with watching her bounce up and down.

I appreciate you can’t afford big name celebrities for every race but I think there are other directions you could go. Personally I’d like to see races where there is more of a balance between man and beast. My suggestion is an event where the horse rides the first mile and then boards a float. For the last 100 metres the jockey would then have to pull the float like in one of those “World’s Strongest Man” competitions. I feel it would be far more strategic and present the opportunity for larger jockeys to get ahead.

I believe there is also more you can do on a charity angle. While other sports have embraced the opportunity to support breast cancer research by going pink, I’m yet to see racing do the same. Surely it can’t be that hard to dye a horse?

Frankly I think it should be done all the time. When I watch racing the dominance of brown horses makes it near impossible for me to work out which horse is coming where. If I knew I was barracking for the blue horse that would be far better.

It also seems peculiar to me that you just get thoroughbred horses to race. If properly handicapped I think you could easily have Shetland ponies, draught horses, donkeys, zebras and even giraffes competing. Who wouldn’t pay to see a giraffe versus a donkey? In these tough economic times allowing Shetland ponies to compete would also prove far more affordable and open up the sport to the common man.

I hope you will take on board these suggestions so that eventually you can capture the attention of others like me who find your sport frightfully boring.

Sincerely,



Jamie Watson

A few things regarding zebras

1. When zebras get old do their black hairs on their coat turn white so they just end up looking like a standard horse?

2. How do black and white stripes work as camouflage anyway? White stripes stand out – that’s why they use them for pedestrian crossings. My theory is that when they are running the black and white creates a kind of strobe effect which sends the lions into an epileptic fit. Used properly, the lions just end up twitching on the ground.

3. One day I hope to have a racehorse that I will give a bit of a dye job to so it looks like a zebra. It would be so much cooler than all the other horses and people would love to back it.

Fuck You Commonwealth Bank

I'm sick of getting ripped off by the bank so I thought I'd write my bank manager a letter. Hear it is below.

Dear Bank Manager,

One day in the 80’s a handsome young man was dispatched from your bank on a mission to woo me. On arrival he whipped out a 12” elephant ruler which I was mightily impressed by. Totally awe-struck, I gleefully grabbed it with both hands. The handsome man went on to tell me an amazing story about compound interest and how the bank would help me save towards an ace remote control car at Uncle Pete’s Toys. The relationship was sealed the following week when I brought in a shiny 50 cent coin and opened my account.

In the early years things went relatively well. The bank lived up to its promise and gave me some interest as well as the occasional money box or bit of stationery. I was however a tad disappointed when the cool pink elephant was replaced by a dollarmite. After all, what the hell is a dollarmite?

As I grew older I think complacency must have set in because the bank suddenly began paying me very little interest. I felt like I was taken for granted. In any long term relationship there needs to be a bit of give and take but as the years rolled on it seemed like the bank was doing all the taking.

Recently the relationship has become downright abusive. Currently I have a savings account (XXXXXXXX) and a cheque account (XXXXXXXXX). Each month I am forced to pay a $5 fee for the savings account and a $10 fee for the cheque account. In return I get about 3 cents in interest in every year. According to my calculations that means I end up with -$159.97.

How am I supposed to go in to Uncle Pete’s Toys with -$159.97 and buy an ace remote control car? I entered this relationship on the promise the bank would help me afford my dream vehicle but it is clear that the handsome young man lied. He never really wanted to help me fulfil my dreams. He just wanted to string me along and rip me off.

While it saddens me immensely I think I have to leave. A new suitor has arrived and he is offering so much more. His name is Bankwest. He says he will never charge me fees and will pay me interest of 2.5% on my regular transaction account. Based on an average balance of around $5000 I calculate that would leave me roughly $284.97 better off a year. Finally I may be able to get that totally cool remote control car and impress all my mates!

Before I make the divorce official I am willing to hear from you. If you wish to win me back you will however have to make me a pretty special offer. I really hope things can work out between us.

Sincerely,

Jamie Watson

P.S. Is the Commonwealth Bank trying to be clever by running ads that perpetuate the stereotype that all Americans are stupid? Such racism is not very becoming.

Go Ashfield!

Food too expensive? Move to Ashfield. Today I bought a snail pastry, a salad roll, a can of coke, a packet of biscuits and five mandarins. Total cost $7. All tasted ace.

Kangaroo Valley Bakery Review

On the weekend I went on holidays to Kangaroo Valley. Great place, crap bakery. The shithouse quality of all their bakery treats was surprising given the fact that trophies were liberally scattered all over the shop. Their scones were bland, their apple pies had terrible pastry and their sausage rolls tasted weird and salty.

Closer inspection of their trophies revealed most were for third places at the Wollongong Show in obscure categories such as apple turnover with mock cream. I don’t know how many bakeries entered an apple turnover with mock cream in the Wollongong show during 2003 but I’m guessing it wasn’t more than 3.

It was kind of like going in to the house of a 30 year old man and seeing trophies from the under 6 D’s Gladesville District Soccer Competition. You don’t expect him to be Ronaldo.