Delusions of Stu
Into the Mind of a Mad Man
Give a Crazy Person a Bunch of Lottery Numbers, and This is What Happens
Jan 10th
So an interesting thing happened to me today. I was checking my external hard drive (a 2 TB monster I bought a couple years ago) to see if I had ever backed up the DVD for The Incredible Hulk to it. Why was I doing this? I wanted to get the quote from Edward Norton — as Bruce Banner — saying in Portuguese, “Don’t make me hungry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.”
Sadly, I had never backed up that movie. But while I was digging around in my hard drive, I discovered a spreadsheet containing winning Powerball lottery numbers over a roughly eight-and-a-half-year period during the 1990′s. See, back in the mid-90′s I made a trip to Pocatello, Idaho. I figured, since I was going to be up there, I may as well buy me a Powerball ticket.
This was shortly after my motorcycle accident of 1995, still during my recovery period. Since I spent most days sitting around trying to entertain myself — or attending boring computer science classes at the local college — I had plenty of time on my hands. So I downloaded the winning numbers for the last 914 Powerball lottery draws, then proceeded to manipulate them in various ways to help me decide what numbers to play.
Long story short, the numbers I ended up choosing did not win. I came back home and forgot all about that spreadsheet… until today. And that’s when my short story becomes a touch longer.
Coincidentally, I happen to have a lot of time on my hands today. So I decided to play around with the numbers again. Specifically, I wanted to see how often each number had been drawn.
A little background: a Powerball ticket consists of choosing five main numbers from a pool of numbers ranging 1 to 59, then a “Powerball” number from 1 to 39. The odds of matching all six numbers is roughly 1 in 195 million. So you can see why the lottery is often referred to as “a tax on people who are bad at math.” Or, perhaps more truthfully, “a tax on the poor.” I just refer to it as a “sucker bet.” And yes, I’m a sucker 
Okay… let’s get back to my point here. I calculated how often each number from the main five occurred over a period of 914 draws. Here are my findings graphed:
As you can see, most numbers were drawn somewhere between 80 and 95 times. This shows that the lottery officials have done a pretty decent job at maintaining randomness. However, what struck me as interesting was the fact that the occurrence of a number being drawn drops off sharply when you hit the 50′s.
This starts with #51 drawn 62x (besting the previous low of 71x) and bottoming out with #58 drawn 4x, finishing with #59 drawn 7x.
Now some information that compulsive lottery players might be interested in…
The five most commonly drawn numbers were 16 (105x), 19 (96x), 26 (101x), 40 (96x), and 42 (97x). The numbers 9, 30, and 49 each barely missed the cutoff at 95x drawn each.
The numbers drawn the least were 55 (38x), 56 (9x), 59 (7x), 57 (6x), and 58 (4x).
Now, obviously, none of this is indicative of the odds of any particular number or range of numbers being drawn in the future. Like I said, this data comes from 914 draws during the 1990′s. The last 10 draws (from Dec. 7 2011 to Jan. 7 2012) drew numbers in the 50′s nine times.
In conclusion: 1 in 195 million odds? I’d buy that for a dollar!
Bob Dylan – Friday, 1976
Dec 15th
It was 1976. My father, after 12 years in the US Navy and two tours to Vietnam, had decided to not re-up so he could get to the business of caring for his family. My mother and I traveled from the Philippines to San Diego to meet my father as he disembarked from a destroyer for the final time. As my father came down the ramp, I spotted him. Reaching my arms out, I screamed for him, “Daddy! Daddy!” as my mother held me. Finally, she released me. I ran into my father’s arms as he scooped me up. He looked in my eyes and handed me a vinyl 45 sheathed in white paper. With the gift, he included the following letter:
“To my beloved son. When this man first visited the troops in Vietnam as part of a USO tour, I was simply passing by when I heard him sing these angelic words. I stopped dead in my tracks. The sound pierced my very soul with each and every syllable to escape his tongue. Even as I clung to each word — every utterance bringing a separate message directed right to my heart — my lips began to tremble. Finally, I could no longer contain that which swelled from within me. With the lightest of whimpers, I let go a single tear from my eye. Falling to my knees, I beheld a greatness that, lest I should ever meet God, I expect to never experience again. May his words speak to you as they have me, to get you through the most troubled of times in your life.”
I never got to hear Mr. Dylan perform this song live as my father did. Nevertheless, this gift from my father — today so worn from constant play in my youth, scratched from the neglectful hands of a child who knew not the value he beheld — has indeed helped me push through the darkest times in my life. As I share this experience with you, I pray for your soul to be saved, just as it has mine. May God be with you, as I have no doubt He will be, as the words you are about to hear fall upon your ears.
Unplug Your Cell Phone Charger When Not In Use!
Dec 12th
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is some sort of message to be environmentally friendly by unplugging your cell phone charger when it’s not in use so it doesn’t sit there drawing power all day.
Well, sure, there is that. But my message to you today is a matter of life and death. My concern is not that you are draining life from our planet Earth, but that you may very well be putting your life — and the lives of others — at risk, not to mention the much bigger issue of possibly contributing to the complete destruction of the human race.
Okay. So now at this point you probably think I’m completely off my rocker. To that I can only say that you are completely off your rocker if you don’t unplug your cell phone charger when it’s not in use! Please, I beg of you, unplug your cell phone chargers!
“Why?” you ask? I know of no other way to provide a proper answer to that without sharing with you my own experience of a plugged-in cell phone charger gone awry. I would, at this time, now share with you a story. A story that may leave you sickened, possibly to the point of vomiting. But it’s a story that must be told, no matter how grotesque.
The year was 2004. I had just started More >
236 Years of Filth and Awesomeness
Nov 10th
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of running into a U.S. Marine, you might feel a little dirty as a result. Unless you’re the enemy. Then you probably feel dead.
Marines die, that’s what we’re here for. But the Marine Corps lives forever. And that means YOU live forever.
–Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman
Happy birthday to every last one of you filthy Marines — past and present.
Five Guys in St. George, UT Makes Me Happy
Nov 2nd
There’s a saying I saw floating around this series of pipes known as the internet. It pertained to the proper way to run a business and went something like this:
Act like taking care of your customers earns you $100 an hour and everything else earns $10 an hour.
Now, I haven’t eaten at but a few different Five Guys locations, all of them here in my home state of Utah. But in all my visits I received a very distinct feeling that they really cared about the customer experience. That is, until I moved to St. George.
To be fair, things are done differently down here. I noticed that very quickly. The local In N’ Out kept jacking up my orders (I quit going there after just 3 visits), the Jack In The Box failed to meet even their low standard, and Smashburger did a decent enough job — just not as good as I’ve come to expect. Wendy’s managed to meet expectations — but let’s be honest, it’s not that difficult. Because of these experiences, I haven’t dared step foot in a McDonald’s.
Five Guys was not much different. They have managed to set a very high expectation from me in regards to quality of food. It’s for that reason that they have become my absolute favorite burger joint. In about five or six visits to the St. George restaurant, my burgers were great. The fries, however, were undercooked. Every time. I kept returning because typically they weren’t real bad. And about half the time they were close enough that they still outdid most other place’s fries.
But then I went in one evening and… wow. Nearly raw. Additionally, the fry cup — which, as anyone who is a Five Guys fan knows, is always served up overflowing — was simply (barely) filled without any overflow.
This, I could not accept from what should be the finest burger joint in any town! So, I launched a message to the Five Guys Twitter account and let them know that their St. George franchise “needs help.”
The response was swift. I was given an apology (standard procedure I figured — nothing special) and provided with a URL to give feedback on my experience. I complied and gave my feedback. I expected that to be the end of it. I figured the manager of the St. George franchise would get the message and things would improve upon my next visit. I should mention that this expectation I had of how Five Guys would handle it was far beyond what I would expect from nearly any other business.
Well, here’s what happened. One of the owners of the franchise (a group of owners actually own all franchise rights to the entire state of Utah) emailed me directly and offered me a free meal. Okay. I accepted. They do serve up my favorite burger afterall.
What happened next is awesome. I expected a coupon or something like that. Nope. The general manager of the St. George Five Guys emailed me directly and asked me to come in so he could apologize to me in person and “…[serve] you the best French fries you have ever had…”
I thought that was really cool! So we scheduled a time — right in the middle of Wednesday’s lunch rush. I entered and told the cashier that I had been invited in by the general manager. To which the cashier responded, “Oh, hi Stuart!” Turns out the cashier was the manager and was ready and expecting me.
I placed my order and it was brought to me. I immediately tried a fry and it was … heavenly!
After I finished my very sumptuous meal, I had a chance to chat with the general manager. We discussed the St. George culture a bit and I left feeling as if I’ll not have to worry about the quality of my fries ever again.
So to Five Guys in St. George, I say, “Good on you!” This is one very satisfied customer. I can pretty much guarantee that the free meal you fed me this day will be paid back to you 70 times 7 fold — or thereabouts. And to everyone living in Washington County, or anyone just passing through, make the Five Guys in St. George a priority visit! Any red-blooded burger-loving American won’t regret doing so!
Words I Had to Teach My Cell Phone
Jul 25th
Technology is just amazing, isn’t it? Work in artificial intelligence has been making especially large leaps. What with a machine named Watson making Ken Jennings its bitch on Jeopardy! and computer-controlled players in video games so realistic I actually kind of feel bad for blowing them up with my double-barrel shotgun, it’s no big surprise that my cell phone has the ability to learn.
Although, when I say “learn” in this context, what I really mean is, “the ability to manually add words to its obsessive-compulsive auto-correct dictionary.”
Okay, so my phone has a ways to go before it reaches the levels of Watson awesomeness. But hey, it’s a start, right? But as I started the process of “teaching” my new phone old tricks, I began to wonder, “Shouldn’t something as smart as my phone already understand something as simple as tacos?”
And thus, a list of words that I’ve had to teach my Verizon Thunderbolt phone over the last few months.
To start with: Dom Deluise, awesomeness, awesomest, dumbest.
Umm… so how am I supposed to text to my friends, “Dom Deluise was the dumbest comic actor ever. And by dumbest, I mean his awesomeness was the awesomest!”
Okay, so “awesomest” is not a word. Ain’t no way Ima let that thar stop me from makkin’ my walkie-talkie think that it is! Yep. That was the best redneck impression I could come up with. You can thank me later.
Moving on: dang, f-bombs, fetcher, freaking.
Alright. A — This phone is being sold in Utah County. B — What the EFF?! When an auto manufacturer builds a car, it’s built to regional standards. You know, like putting the driving controls on the wrong side for cars shipped to Europe and adding extra large cup holders for cars sold in America. The same should be done for phones. A cell phone with cup holders. Awesomeness!
Oh, I also had to add the word “effing.” Not so smart now are you phone?
Moving on: bastie, biotch, conehead.
“Those bastie alien Conehead biotches are stealing my car!” Nevermind the redundancy. It can’t be tweeted using factory settings. Sorry. Oh, you also can’t say “tweeted”.
How about grok? I thought high-tech toys were made by geeks. Can’t they grok the need to have the word grok included in my phone’s dictionary? Can you grok me now?
Here’s a weird one: Hades.
If you own an iPhone, you’ve no doubt noticed that typing in “hell” auto-corrects to “he’ll”. Not so on the Thunderbolt. In fact, you’re not even given the option to correct to “he’ll”. So I can tell my enemies to rot in hell, but not Hades. Those anti polytheist bigots!
Here are a few more: copywriter, vacuous, entendre.
I guess if a phone doesn’t realize its user was a professional copywriter in a past life, it probably figures I would never, ever use a phrase like “Your vacuous double entendres are meaningless!” Oh well.
Let’s get to the absolutely ludicrous shall we? Here are some words that honestly stunned me when I saw that they were not already in the dictionary:
beret (no raspberry beret for Prince)
bittersweet
Braille
cranking
delusional
hallelujah (one of the most covered songs ever! Leonard Cohen is not pleased)
I’d
impersonation
lortab, shrooms (my drug dealer wonders why I’m always asking for “portal” and “rooms”)
mazel tov (anti Semites!)
mothballed
NCMO (how else are you supposed to ask a random stranger if they’d like to make out? In person? I think not!)
obliteration
ouch
posit
raptor
ringer, ringtones, texting, voicemail (you’re a cell phone — seriously?)
résumé
salamander
Sasquatch (just because he’s ALLEGED to not exist doesn’t make it so!)
Scooby (he’s got a fat tongue and can’t speak clearly. That’s no reason to shun him!)
scum
shiz (sorry Snoop Dogg. Just another diss on your genius — foshizzle!)
Spartacus , Starbuck (two great heroes of freedom, so say we all!)
stogies
taco (and yet, for some odd reason, “amigo” IS in the dictionary!)
taffy (no Laffy Taffy jokes 
)
we’ll
WWII
yum, yummy
Well, now you have a small look into the kind of language I use when texting and tweeting. And a realization of just how dumb cell phones still are. Maybe the next iPhone will solve all our problems? iPhone 5 for President in 2012!
I Guess I Can’t Complain When I Only Pay $5 for Content … Or Can I?
Jun 17th
As someone who spent a few years as a professional copywriter then later as an web marketing consultant, it always makes me cringe just a bit when someone — in all sincerity — offers me a copywriting job for what amounts to a pea pod with no peas.
Hey, come on! We all know that the best part of a pea pod is not the pod, but the peas!
So I guess I should feel a little guilty doing the same. But the thing is, I don’t! Why? Well, first off, I’m a businessman. I’m not going to pay the rate I ask for if I can get away with it. Shoot, if I paid everybody my rate, there’s no way I could stay in business!
Also, the following are samples taken from actual articles that I paid $5 each for. Yeah, after seeing these, I think you’ll agree with me that I’m the one that got ripped off here. Enjoy the show!
When a person wants to purchase a product or a service online, their are many websites that will offer them what they need and more. Here’s a look at three very different marketplaces, and how they operate to offer people the different products or services that they desire.
First, there’s Amazon.com. People might be amazed by the variety of products and services that Amazon offers. How Amazon works, is that people order their products online at the website, and then Amazon works with a network of drop shippers, and they stock products in their own warehouse, where people who work in the warehouse pick the orders, box them, and send them to the customers. All a person has to do is to go to Amazon.com, and type in the search engine bar a product or service that they are looking for. It should be known that however, that Amazon primarily offers products. The next time a person is curious about a particular product, they should type it in, and chance are that Amazon will have it for them for purchase. Amazon by the way is also a great resource for a college students by their textbooks as well.
Craigslist is a no-nonsense online classified ad website. How it works is that a person goes to Craigslist’s main page, where there are links for cities in the U.S., for and different countries all over the world. This is best website for people who want to obtain products or services right in their community. On the other hand, if a person is aware of a particular product or service in a different city, or around the world, they can look here as well. People have also found roommate arrangements, or rooms for rent as well.
The last place that will be mentioned for online purchases is called eBay. eBay has been around for a while, and it’s an auction site. How it works is that people post pictures of the products that they have for auction. People have to bid on these products. The difference between eBay and some of the other online marketplaces, is that eBay is totally driven by the people who want to sell particular products. eBay doesn’t have warehouses of products such as Amazon, and it’s not community driven like Craigslist. But if a product appears on eBay, it’s totally at the discretion of the person who has an eBay account. When that product is gone, it’s gone forever, because it has been purchased.
If a person wants to decide where they should buy from when shopping from an online marketplace, the answer is that it depends upon what they are looking to purchase.
The great beauty of the above article is that author had the audacity to ask for a tip. Hey, you never know unless you ask, right? I feel particularly sorry for the person I asked to rewrite it for me. Copyediting is definitely not one of my great loves in life.
This next sample, in the author’s defense, was a teenager who happened to owe me quite a bit of money. I offered them $5 for an article and told them that if it turned out well, I’d pay double and have plenty more work for them. I won’t say who this person is to save any embarrassment. After all, I remember being their age and I have to thank Mrs. Jamsa, my 8th grade English teacher, for teaching me all about proper use of paragraphs.
This was meant to be an article about monetizing a blog. But instead… well, take a look.
how to start blogging for money is starting a blog. There are many free blogging platforms out there- -for example:word press, Live Journal,blogger, etc.- -using the free platforms will limit the money you get.
I suggest using a domain name as well as webhosting and customizing your own wholly you blog. Many webhosts include the ability to install blogging software autimatticly with just a touch of a button, so you can literally be on your own “you.com” website and start blogging within minutes.
how to start blogging
blogging is writing so get started! try talking about something new everyday. if writing daily is to much, start with three every week. or even two posts a week. having multiple posts every week is important because search engines want to see that- -that’s important and we will descuss that in the next section.
you can write about almost anything. if its politics, personal life,music, sports,video games- -whatever you want.
whatever you choose to write about try to stick with a common theme and write regualrlly. if you do that you will eventually get traffiv
Get Traffic
ok time to be honest if you want to max out your hit counter then write about something that’s extremely conversational. then say the less popular side is better or agree with it. then get uber extreme in your view nothing says “hey come to my website” better than something that almost everyone disagrees with.but in the end, its really all about talking about something new regularly. getting three new posts per week will eventually get u traffic.
Get Paid
there are a couple of ways to get money first get a good amount of traffic. lets say over 10,000 unique visitors per month. if you get that kind of traffic ,you can start to charge a decent amount for an ad space.
a different method is you have a good google pagerank (PR) The higher PR, the more people will want to advertise on you page. writing multiple posts a day, some bloggers are making several thousand dollars a month its not a lot but it can easily pay the mortgage on a modest home.
The above was a rewrite of an article I had written — which is why there is the occasional patch of proper grammar. Needless to say… well, since it’s needless, I’m not going to say it. I think the moral of the story is quite obvious.
Some might say I got what I paid for. To that I say, “Maybe.” At least I got a blog post out of it!
Three Wars At Once? No Problem! Right?
Mar 22nd
If you take a look at the United States’ military budget, you’ll see that we spend as much annually as the next TEN highest spending countries… COMBINED!
Sooo… that means we can go to war with the next 10 most militarily powerful countries before even breaking a sweat, right? Well, not quite.
We SPEND tons more on our military. That doesn’t make us tons more powerful necessarily. A single Tomahawk missile for example costs more than many countries’ entire annual military budget! And we just launched over a hundred of those bad boys at Libya just a few days ago at a cost of roughly the combined annual salaries of all 535 members of Congress!
A million dollars spent on soldiers with nothing more than AK-47′s will do more damage than a million-dollar missile that’s designed to blow itself up.
Frankly, I tend to think that the best way to destroy a country is by launching all 535 members of Congress over to them. They’ll destroy the nation with their ridiculous politics in no time at all.
And yes Shirley, I’m serious.
How To Remove Facebook Apps
Dec 30th
There’s been a recent spout of Facebook postings that are of virus-infected, phishing, or other malicious links. These are typically posted to people’s walls without permission. The most common cause is a malicious Facebook app.
Because of this, people have been asking a lot, “How do I remove apps?” Facebook doesn’t make it easy, so I decided to create this walkthrough.
Step 1: Access Privacy Settings
Acccess privacy settings by clicking the “Account” link at the top right of any logged in Facebook page:
Step 2: Edit App Settings
Click “Edit your settings” under “Apps and Websites” at the bottom of the Privacy page:
Step 3: Select the App to Remove
Now simply click on the app you wish to remove. If you don’t see the app you want removed, click the “Edit Settings” button to display a list of all apps:
Step 4: Remove the App
Once the app’s settings come up, just click “Remove app”:
Step 5: Confirm Removal:
And voila! App is removed, no more nasty posting from it!
He Whom The Gods Wish To Destroy, First Makes Angry
Dec 25th
I’ve got an angry streak. There’s just no denying it. I’ve tried and tried to overcome it, I’ve prayed and prayed for God to lift it from me. But I never have gotten over it.
The best I was ever able to do was to try and control my behavior that resulted from my being angry. Unfortunately, that method of “control” has a huge flaw; I wasn’t doing anything about the anger.
I suppose it could be said that modifying my behavior was a bit like dumping oatmeal in your car’s radiator when it has a hole in it. Sure, the oatmeal might keep the car from overheating for a little while. But the real cause of the problem — that there is a gaping hole that the coolant is pouring out of — remains. Then you have to keep adding more and more oatmeal, exacerbating the problem; until, finally, the engine blows. Then, of course, you blame the oatmeal company.
So in order to deal with the radiator problem, you’ve got to fix the hole. With my anger issues, I needed to deal with the anger directly rather than pouring oatmeal on it.
With the radiator, the solution is simple. You take it to a repair shop. The repair shop is LOVE.
Say what?!
Okay, stay with me here.
The solution to overcoming my own anger was also very simple. There was something that would happen when I became angry. In many ways, it’s the same thing that happens to Bruce Banner when he becomes angry. No, I don’t turn into a mega-powerful green beast… although I would often go on a rampage just the same. But I would lose control, turn mad with rage, as if someone else were pulling my strings. I would also feel nothing. Physically or emotionally.
I’ve broken my hand. Gotten cuts to the bone. Bruised my shins. Broken my foot. Sprained my finger. Oh, wait, that last one was from playing poker. That’s another story. Anyway, these all happened when I was angry, and I never felt the pain of those injuries. Well, not until well after I had calmed down any way.
Emotionally, I felt only one thing: rage.
That rage was the “hole in my radiator.” Modifying my behavior is the “oatmeal” quick fix that doesn’t last. What I needed to do was find a repair shop.
Now, you might think that I’m saying that I need to find someone to love me. NO! I was already surrounded by people that love me. And the worst part of everything? I blamed those people for making me angry. I loved those people — or at least I always said I did and felt that I did — so how could I possibly blame them for a problem that was mine? Well, that’s the stupid thing about it all. It’s human nature to never take the blame for anything. I was angry because other people were “making” me angry. It was never true of course, but that’s what my twisted mind would think.
My anger affected those people deeply. It caused them to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Things that offended me. And when they would do those things, I would get angry and blame them. Then I would try to forgive them for something that, in reality, was 99% my fault because I drove them to it. The other 1% comes from their decision to do the offending action. As long as it wasn’t forced, there is that 1%, but I hold nearly all the responsibility because they wouldn’t have been driven to make such a decision if it weren’t for what I was doing.
So you see? I blamed others for my actions when it was really me that was to blame for their actions.
It wasn’t until I went to the repair shop… scratch that. It wasn’t until a good friend forced me to go to the repair shop that I was finally able to fix the problem. What’s the going hourly rate these days for radiator repair? Because it took my friend several months to set me straight. Unfortunately, he had tried to get me to take my radiator to a repair shop many times, but I didn’t listen until the car engine finally blew.
Okay. So let’s remember what I felt emotionally during my outbursts. Only one emotion, right? There was no room for anything else. That’s what happens when you become overwhelmed with one emotion; that emotion becomes the powering force in your life.
There is one other thing. Those offenses against me? Even though they were my fault, I had to find a way to forgive those people of those offenses, otherwise the offenses would continue to drive my anger. How do I forgive an offense that causes me so much anger?
So remember in the movie Dune when Muad’Dib comes to a sudden realization and says to himself, “The worm IS the spice. The spice IS the worm.”
Well, love is the radiator repair shop. The radiator repair shop IS love! LOVE!
In order to forgive, and I mean TRULY forgive someone who has offended, I must love them more than I am angry about the offense!
My friend put it oh so simply. “If you truly love them, you will forgive them.”
I truly loved these people more than anyone could imagine. Unfortunately, I wasn’t letting all of it out. When I finally did, the love became the dominant emotion in my life and completely overshadowed the anger! And it was at that very instant I was able to unconditionally forgive.
Yes, it really was that simple. I know you don’t believe me. The old me never would have believed it either. But it’s true. Love truly does conquer all! Don’t believe it? Then love those who have offended you. No, I mean REALLY love them! You’ll see.
But I’m not done. The only reason I was offended was because I offended so many myself. To those people, I must make penance and beg forgiveness. It won’t be easy because they have known the old me for so long, it will take time for them to get to know the new me and, with all the hope I can muster, pray that they will have the strength to someday forgive me and trust me again.
Always remember the lesson that I have learned! If you are blaming someone else for how you feel, love them. Then you’ll realize that it’s you who are making yourself feel that way and it is THEIR forgiveness you must ask for.
