Honestly.  I don't want you thinking that YOU should have won the powerball or anything, because... Well, come on.  What would you have done?  You would have just blown through the money like MC Hammer on Fantasy Island (Stop!  Mercedes Time!)...  No.  You couldn't be trusted.

However, I purchased five tickets on Saturday afternoon.  As I filled out the little numbers using the correct No. 2 pencil and followed silently while I read outloud...  I could feel the powerball numbers in my bones.  I was floating through space and there were flashing neon signs that said "No Whammies" and "Big Money" and "Adult Movies XXX" .. eh... Anyway.  I felt like I really had some winners.

So I put my $5 bill down and like Jack Nicholson with a nervous tic I said "Gimme my powerball ticketssssss".   Then I hissed and snorted and tried to keep my left hand from jumping around and smacking this little old lady next to me.  I had wild eyes!  The smell of financial independence and freedom just around the corner.

The clerk gave me my tickets, somehow balancing the ashes on her cigarette the whole time - mesmerized I was.  I ran out the door, smashing it open with my shoulders.  I ran home and felt like Charlie from Willy Wonka - "Look Poppa, a gol-den tic-ket".  Of course, there were no old people hanging around my place.  Go figure, another quality joke wasted.

Patiently I waited.  Well, actually, I ended up passing out during the time they pulled the lucky numbers out of the magic hat.  When I awoke the next morning, I grabbed my ticket and loaded up to look at the numbers at the official powerball site...

No... no... Hmm.  Not that one.  Oh, close.  No.  Yes!  There's one.  But not the powerball.  Hmm.  That's it.

Amazing how that little ticket went from being worth $40 million to nothing!  Oh, the humanity!

Well, anyway, surfing around the site a little, I came across their lottery "frequency" numbers.  Yes, they actually have this one their site back from 1997.  And lo and behold - two of the numbers I picked have only appeared 4 times since 1997.  Yes.  That's right.

So what do we learn from this?  Aside from the fact that I was, apparently, wrong with my money-winning instincts?  No, it's not "Hunter can't pick fucking numbers."

I just would like to point out, that according to the Powerball frequency page, the numbers I picked have a rarer chance of coming up all together than my odds of hitting the actual powerball.  So, take THAT!   I may not have the money, Mr. Powerball Man!  But I did a better job at picking the numbers than YOU did.  (Here you can't see, but I'm shaking my fist with the worthless ticket in my hand at the roof and screaming up at the sky).

-Hunter