I have in my grubby little hands a slip of paper that could grant your favorite charitable organization $100. <\/p>\n
Last night, I did the somewhat unthinkable (or at least, unreasonable) for a self-avowed skeptic: I bought a Powerball ticket. I lost, of course, as do the vast, vast majority of people who buy these tickets. It isn’t a good investment of even one measly greenback — but hey, it’s a vice. <\/p>\n
And speaking of vices, I also realize I drink too much coffee. I’m going to try to quit — or at least drastically cut back — and I reckon I’d easily spend at leat $100 over a given four months for coffee and other caffeinated beverages. <\/p>\n
Still, my loss is your gain — provided you have actual psychic powers. For this month only, if you can guess all six numbers — originally chosen by the Powerball machine — I will give your favorite charity $100. If nobody successfully guesses, I’ll donate the money to the James Randi Educational Foundation<\/a>. <\/p>\n Here’s how Powerball works, from their site<\/a>: \t<\/p>\n \nPowerball\u00c2\u00ae is a combined large jackpot game and a cash game. Every Wednesday and Saturday night at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time, we draw five white balls out of a drum with 59 balls and one red ball out of a drum with 39 red balls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I’ve been told that many psychics refrain from playing the lottery as it would be a crass abuse of their powers. Fortunately for you, I have a guilt-free method with which you can demonstrate your powers and be assured that a deserving charity gets the full total of the award in your name. In the very least, you’ll be able to keep that Randi guy from getting another benjamin. <\/p>\n I’m sorry that it couldn’t be more, but if I were rich — or good with money — I wouldn’t be buying lottery tickets. <\/p>\n Here are the rules:<\/p>\n 1) You have until 11:59 PM (Eastern Time) on October 31, 2009 to post your guess of six Powerball numbers to this blog entry. UPDATE (30 seconds later)<\/strong>: A few quick edits for typos. <\/p>\n UPDATE 2 (<\/strong>1.5 hrs later, or so): Just to be clear, I am in no way affiliated with the James Randi Educational Fund. They neither sponsor nor sanction this brutal test of paranormal abilities. <\/p>\n UPDATE 3<\/strong>: Damn. I lost the ticket. It must have slipped out of my wallet. We’ll try again later. Skeptifail!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have in my grubby little hands a slip of paper that could grant your favorite charitable organization $100. Last night, I did the somewhat unthinkable (or at least, unreasonable) for a self-avowed skeptic: I bought a Powerball ticket. I lost, of course, as do the vast, vast majority of people who buy these tickets. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[114,113,178],"class_list":["post-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sciencegeek-porn","category-skeptic","tag-jref","tag-psychic-challenge","tag-skeptic","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7V2xo-bG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":734,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions\/734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n2) You must provide your e-mail address. One guess per person. (I’ll check IPs\/emails).
\n3) You must indicate a 501(c)(3)<\/a> charity in your post. Otherwise, I’ll donate it to JREF<\/a> in your name.
\n4) The lottery ticket will be kept in my wallet. If my wallet becomes lost\/stolen over this month, the contest will end. Void. Kaput.
\n5) Your sole hint: the Powerball ticket was purchased September 30, 2009
\n6) If, for some reason, I lose my main source of income this month, i.e., “my freakin’ job,” the psychic challenge will stand, but I will hold off on donating to JREF. Sorry Randi, Phil.
\n7) Payments will be made in four monthly installments, since this is coming out of my coffee money. <\/p>\n