Gambling
10.30.06 (10:45 pm) [edit]I don't understand the governments in this country. I do understand that government-owned gambling is a very politically safe way of raising revenue, but to think that it's so seductive a revenue source that our governments have turned to pushers.... well, it's unthinkable.
I'm impressed by the Americans. At least, as far as I can remember, lottery commercials on American TV and radio have solicited their wares by showing players having fun playing the lottery, and even sometimes going as far as saying "but you won't get rich". At their most amoral, they'll hype the size of the jackpot. Up here, the lotteries vividly portray people living the millionaire lifestyle.
I remember 10 short years ago thinking it was media hype that gambling is seen as "addictive". I knew that a psychological addiction to gambling was a real phenomenon, but not being a chemical addiction, it was in a different class, and therefore a different league--it was voluntary tax for people who're bad at math, but nothing more. Then one day I was sitting in a sports bar or something, which had VLTs in them, and there were people sitting in front of them, quite vigorously pumping coins into them. I didn't get the feeling that this activity was a subsidiary of the whole club experience, I got the feeling they were there principally for the VLTs. I became more open to the idea that the human psyche is more susceptible to addiction to gambling.
But the reason I'm posting this now, is because of a 5th Estate documentary recently, and other news reports I've heard since then. The documentary was mostly about the Ontario Lottery Corporation (a crown corporation) that was embarassed that a convenience store clerk had ripped off an old man, and were trying to sweep the whole affair under the rug, and stonewall the old man at the same time. The beginning of the documentary gave a brief report about how guys who do the lottery in California had discovered a similar fraud in their system, and then put a great deal of effort into finding the victim so he could be awarded his prize (another incident of Americans putting our governments to shame). Yesterday I heard a statistic on the radio, and I don't remember it clearly enough to quote, but it gave an alarming picture of how many suicides are precipitated by gambling addiction. And, of course, for every suicide there's certain rate of marriages that end, or criminal acts, or anything else that substance abuse could cause. And our own governments are doing this to us!
Weddings and friendship
10.09.06 (10:59 pm) [edit]Weddings can be a great way to bring out the worst in people. I remember a guy I know telling me how his best friend really lost it, and was yelling at people, and evening getting a bit physical.
For the most part, I imagine, the event is a very positive one, even for those who suffer the most amount of stress. However, for those who don't handle stress very well, they might be better off eloping. And no one handles stress with more weakness and despondency than Sally. I don't remember if I mentioned, but she's getting married in March (maybe) and I'm to give her away--her dad died before I met her. What I didn't mention is that she is also broke. She's maxed out her line of credit (5000CADs, instead of the regular 10000) and she even owes money to Visa. What's especially tragic about that, is that she doesn't deserve to be in debt. She's not one to blow a wad of dough on frivolous junk and then not have money to pay the rent; she's very good with money. The reason she's in this situation is that she has these unusual medical expenses that aren't very well covered, so her bank accounts (and RRSPs) are hamstrung by these various millionaire specialists whom she sees. So she's asked me to have the ceremony in my house.
According to my insurance company, my house is worth 220kCAD. For those of you who aren't familiar with real estate in this immediate area, my house is a little bit bigger than you might expect a 200lbs bachelor (and his 8lbs pussycat) to be living in, but it's awfully depressing to think someone wants to get married in it. She's also religious (Catholic) and attends mass every week, but she's not even being married by a priest (although, there could be other reasons for this, that she's not prepared to disclose).
So I think I'm going to tell her that I don't want her to get married in my house, or in any other house, and that I'm willing to do what it takes to get her a proper wedding. So now I've got to imagine the alternatives. Maybe I could break into a church, hold up a priest, and give a new meaning to "shotgun wedding". Or I could break in, subdue a priest, and have him perform the ceremony in a scopolamine-induced semi-coma. Ah forget it, I'll just use money to make it work.
I'm not without my concerns. I don't know how this might change our friendship. I don't know if she's the kind of person who'd feel like I'd have something to hold over her. Or it might just be more subtle and more irrational. It might be like when you do it with your co-worker as a one-off thing by mistake, and it gets all weird working with them after that. I dunno, I've never paid for a wedding before... or done it with a co-worker. Then there's what if she breaks another engagement? What if the engagement should be broken off, but she feels even more bound to follow through because of my involvement? I don't quite know how secure this engagement is. That doesn't mean I think he's wrong for her, just that a non-marriage outcome wouldn't surprise me in the least. And, if you read my last blog, you know that that's the sort of thing that I can't even begin to talk to her about.
Fortunately, emerging financial circumstances make bearing wedding expenses a little less ludicrous. But that's for another blog entry.
The best catch there is
10.01.06 (10:17 pm) [edit]I have this friend, who's my bestest friend in the whole world. I'll call her... I'll call her.... sheesh, I've got nicknames for everyone else in my life, but her. Fine, I'll call her Sally from When Harry Met Sally fame. You know it's just a movie, right, and men and women can be friends w/out the sex part getting in the way? Well, we've managed for several years now.
So the kind of friendship we've had is one wherein we'd always be seen together, so most people assumed we were boinking. It's much easier now that we aren't both single. But the friendship we have is one where we just... know each other. I felt so comfortable around her, and it just felt natural that she always was around. She also understand me more than anyone else.
She's also been engaged a few times. Each time but one has been proven to be to the wrong guy. The current time has yet to be proven either way. The last time she got very hurt by my attitude, whatever it was. When she announced her last engagement, I was bewildered because only a few months before she had told me she couldn't go back to feeling the way she used to about this guy. Even though I didn't raise any objection, but just reacted in the most natural way to the last thing I expected, she burst into tears and blah blah blah. Well, even after that engagement fell through, she found comments I was making very hurtful. Because she kept throwing me these sliders I had some prediction that a month before the wedding, I'd come back from vacation and find they'd broken it off. (She now has yesterday marked as "they day I almost made the biggest mistake of my life") She found this hurtful, which is probably why she's seemed more distant from me these last few months.
I don't understand this. I'm TheRockSays and that in itself has always implied that we could talk about anything. So how come all of a sudden I can't express some of the most basic and obvious thoughts on something extremely important w/out being grossly politically incorrect? And being TheRockSays, in its own right, has made me the 2nd most responsible party for making sure she doesn't end up w/the wrong guy. If I were interfering, that would be one thing, but I'm not putting her under any pressure at all. I'm caught in a catch-22 because I can't understand this problem w/out talking to her, but talking to her is key to whole the problem.