Obdormio.com

I think everybody dreams of winning lots of money in the lottery, even those who don’t buy tickets. I’ve certainly often dreamed of winning a million or two, yet I have never once actually played. I probably won’t either. But I’ve been thinking about what I’d do if I actually did win, what I’d do with the money if I suddenly had it all. So I thought I’d try to make a few calculations and see what I’d end up with.

For starters, I need to know how much people win. According to Norsk Tipping, first price in the Viking Lottery last time was 4 518 325 kroner ($666 624.634, €562 267.741, £383 007.546). If I suddenly had that kind of money, I should easily be able to give tithe of it. I should easily be able to give tithe of what I have now, but let’s not get into that bit of guilty conscience right now.

So, I start with 4 518 325, of which I give a tenth, 451 832.5, to various charities, leaving me with 4 066 492 kroner and 50 øre ($599 962.17, €506 040.967, 16 877 950 Russian rubles), still a heapload of money.

Next, I should probably be really boringly sensible. I’m hopefully starting university next year, and that costs money, lots of it. If I could avoid a loan, it would make life easier for me, so let’s look at what debts I will end up in without the prize.

NSELF calculates 80 000 kroner a year, and a proper education would take at least five years, I think, so that’s 400 000 kroner ($59 015.2, €49 776.6532, Â¥6 852 257). Throw in costs for housing and food and stuff, it’ll add up. I think, just to have a really huge margin of error, that I’d set aside a full million for these years, leaving me with 3 066 492 kroner and 50 øre ($452 424.097, €381 599.272, ₨20 109 257). I’ll buy a gum for those 50 øre, just to be rid of them.

Now, it’s time to go nuts. All the stuff I’m currently drooling over, wishing I could afford. Most of them are round and with holes in the middle. And not made of dough.

For starters, I’d need a region free DVD player, so I didn’t have to worry about that. That won’t kill me, a decent one can be found for 500kr. Next, I need all the Pretender DVDs, Stargate SG1 season eight, Stargate Atlantis season one, all the Highlander seasons, and probably a lot more…

So;
DVD player: 500kr.
Four seasons of the Pretender: 1600kr, if they all cost the same.
Two seasons of various Stargate: 1300kr.
Six seasons of Highlander: 2500kr.

Actually, I can’t possibly think of all the films, series and other stuff I’d buy off the cuff like this. I think I’ll say that those 66 492kr would go to a shopping spree, leaving me with a round 3 000 000kroner ($442 614, €373 324.899, å…ƒ3 559 535.49). Wow, this is really an insane amount of money, I just lost all sympathy for striking sport stars. Not that I had much sympathy for them in the first place.

What the hell would I do with the rest?! I doubt my parents would accept any of it, but I could spend some on gifts. Yeah, I’ll take my family on a nice holiday, that sounds good. And I’d buy some stuff for my brother and sister, and my grandparents. To be generous, let’s say that takes 200 000kr, that still leaves me with 3 800 000kr ($560 644.4, €472 878.205, â‚©542 986 480). And I kind of doubt I’d be able to spend up the full 66 492kr, without going completely materialist crazy and buying gold faucets or something. Ok, that might cost more, but you get the point.

I know! I’ll tithe again!

10% of 3 800 000 is 380 000 ($56 064.44, €47 287.8205, 82 824 733.58 dinars), leaving me with 3 420 000kr. man, still loads and loads. I think it’d be best to just put it in the bank and save for when I need to buy a house or something. Yeah that sounds good.

Wow, 3 420 000kr ($504 579.96, €425 590.385, ₪2 378 030.2) I couldn’t even think of what to do with. maybe I should start playing the lottery…

Why? WHY?! It’s not fair dammit! Television floods over with bad shows about people trying to date amid stupid twists, and people getting surgery and makeovers and people surviving on stupid islands. We’re drowning in stupid sit-coms, rehashing the same old formulas. We get to watch inane game shows!

But “The Pretender”? Was cancelled.

Cancelled.

We’ll never know what happens to Jarod in the end. We never get to know if the Centre gets what’s coming to them. We’ll never know the true significance of Edna Raines humming that song.

And also, Andrea Parker was fantastic.

Now I’m depressed.

This is your fault, Loki!

… but it’s OK, because it was masculine stage make-up, of the type worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Steven Seagal.

Today we had the last showing of the school revue, and it was a blast. it has been a blast, for the past three days. My family, admittedly not objective judges, assures my that the bit I’m in is the best in the show.

As this was the last day, much fun was had, and it culminated in a wonderful technician’s revue. All the actors switched places with the technicians, band members, make-up artists, directors and producers. We got to see the technicians mangle the carefully practiced songs, dances and skits, while the actors messed up the sound, lighting and music. It was one of the most hilarious things I have seen.

The skit I’m in involves strange words nobody’s ever heard and the definitions of them. The replacements could barely remember one of them, we had to shout reminders about the rest. Marvellous fun.

Kinda sad that it’s over though. It was a great and extremely funny show, and more people should get to see it. On the other hand, this means an end to significant amounts of stress around the school, things might even get calm before the end of next week.

Of course, there is still the matter of the anthology, and the show we need to put for the school in march, but those are worries for tomorrow. Today, I will relax with my recently arrived fifth season of SG1.

On my twentieth birthday I:

• Spent fifty minutes waiting behind the scenes for my one small appearance in the school show.
• Missed the entire first act because of this, but was allowed to see the second.
• Did the dishes of one hundred and thirty slobby students
• Completely failed to write any of the stuff I needed to write for the upcoming anthology.
• Got a cool book of poems.
• Somehow exhausted myself without getting anything done.

But man, that book is awesome. It has poetry by Kristofer Uppdal and Ivar Aasen!

During breakfast today, we were discussing which is better, the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook or the psi-scan (Best. School. Ever!). It wasn’t much of a debate, as we were pretty much in agreement that the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook was the greatest, especially since we have never seen the psi-scan translate languages or give history lessons. Still, there might be instances where the psi-scan is more useful. You can hardly wave the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook in the air and then get a complete list of all the gases and substances present.

Then my friend David gets the most kick-arse idea in the history of kick-arse ideas. In order to settle this properly, we have to pit the two against each other. And to do that we need to write (dramatic pause) a Red Dwarf/Donald Duck crossover fanfiction!

Exactly who will get this honour and how it should be done, we did not discuss. But man, it will almost certainly be the most awesome thing in the world.

I’ve put up the notes for the first scenario my Red Dwarf RPG group played through. If you’re an AI looking for some ideas or inspiration, have a look at Episode 1: Collision Course.

I’m sitting here listening to Classic FM. To understand why I’m currently torn between cracking up and being creeped out, click that link and have a listen. Wait for a commercial break, and listen carefully for the ad for “Mozart for babies”. The one where there isn’t a baby speaking. Pay particular attention to the ending, where the lady says: “for special little people”.

Am I crazy, or is this insanely creepy yet hilarious at the same time?

So, bad things are happening. In Syria and other places. And even I, in my news-depraved existence, have managed to form some opinions on the proceedings.

The Mohammed cartoons printed by Jyllands-Posten and Magazinet have offended Muslims everywhere, it seems. Scanning the headlines, I almost get the impression that every Muslim in the world is currently on a great embassy burning tour. This isn’t the case, of course, but people who apologize and act rationally are boring, so the rioters get the big headlines.

There’s no question that burning embassies and attacking innocents is wrong, as is punishing a whole country for the actions of a few extreme citizens. Likewise, it is wrong to blame Muslims in general for the extreme reactions. That’s all pretty obvious, and not what has been bothering me.

I keep thinking about the cartoons and the reason being printing them in the first place. After all the controversy started it has become a freedom of speech issue, a great battle between freedom and censorship. I don’t know, maybe it is. I certainly don’t condone the demands that the governments of Denmark and Norway step in against the papers. But the more I see and hear about this, the more I think that it is less about freedom of speech, and more about freedom of stupidity, which is kind of a subset I think.

I’m not even sure the cartoons were legal, Norway at least has laws against blasphemy, and from what I understand any image of the prophet Mohammed is considered blasphemy in Islam, offensive cartoon or not. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the editor of Magazinet actually supported said law wholeheartedly. Bit of a double standard there, then.

Speaking of double standards, I also read that Jyllands-Posten refused to print cartoons depicting Jesus, because they might offend Christians.

I’m just having a hard time understanding why they would want to print the cartoons in the first place. The only reason I can think of is that they wanted to offend Muslims. Jyllands-posten is one thing, they might not have anticipated how offended people would be (though, looking at some of those drawings, it’s hard to imagine), but for Magazinet and other papers to print them later, that just seems mean.

Sure, we have freedom of speech, and we’re quite happy for it, thank you very much. Even so, just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should do it. Would it kill the printers to apologize for offending people? Is it really necessary to continue pissing them off by refusing to admit they made a mistake?

As for those who keep printing the things, well that’s just taunting.

When it comes to opinions and stuff like that, I easily get sidetracked and I have problems getting my point across, so I’ll try to just summarize it here, to avoid confusion:

Printing those cartoons, whether legally allowed or not, was a damn stupid thing to do. The publishers should be ashamed of themselves and apologize to the people they offended. They should not, and let me stress this, not, apologize because the extreme and unfair reactions scare them (or their governments), or because they feel threatened. They should apologize because printing those cartoons was a damn stupid thing to do.

What are these moronic cartoons trying to say, anyway? Printing something, anything, whose only purpose is to offend, is about freedom of stupidity. Sure, we have that freedom, but it really does little good to use it.