The Grumbly Old Fart Thread

[MystyrMystyry]

Is it the best of times? Or the worst?

Today I received a bill from the eletrickery company - my heart missed a beat. I'd just paid the last bill two weeks ago!

Well it wasn't a bill. It was a nonsense about entering a chance at a competition for a year's free trickery if I paid their bills online, and a second chance if I filled out a questionaire about what great service they're providing me with (obviously I would have to be adamant that they were providing the best service imaginable for a chance at entry)

But the thing is the assumption that I could be a double winner (or triple) if I declared to the world how fantastical I think they and their new improved website are (so that's where my hard-earned goes - I'd been wondering about the recent hikes)

Anyway - personally I'd rather win a free lifetime's supply of solar panels than have any further dealings with them and their 'green energy' crock, and I certainly don't want them knowing anything more about me than where I live - which is already too much information as far as I'm concerned.

I mean I don't even feel safe the banks knowing how much money I have with them - scrap that! I don't like the banks to know I have any money with them!

What to do? To enter the stupid competition (of which the odds seem stacked toward the CEO anyway), or ignore it, and grit my teeth and snarl four times over the coming year? (which shall anyway, knowing that I haven't a snowball's chance)

What would you do?

[zoolane]

Junk mail put in the bin. The saying go ' If sound to good to be true' than probably is and also for all you know could scam used your ele company to front it with out them knwoing.

[kasie]

To how many households does your Trickery (I like that one - may I borrow it?) Company provide tricks? I was going to say 'serve' but you may consider that a contradiction in terms. 100,000? 200,000? OK - there's your odds of winning. One for the recycling bag, I think, MM.

[MystyrMystyry]

You are both right of course. I think I was just tired and weighing up the idea that most people wouldn't bother with entering, thus giving me the slimmest edge (and without trying to calculate the math. I don't do the lottery for this reason)

But when I do buy a lottery ticket I have a system. Not much of a system if you don't play it systematically naturally, but if I remembered to do it regularly I'd probably be a multi-bil by now.

In fact once all my numbers did actually come up, for a vast sum, but I hadn't lodged in weeks. I guess the moral there is that if you can't lodge regularly you shouldn't look at the results regularly either.

I cut the results from the paper and put it on my fridge to remind me to lodge my ticket - because had I won: one times six numbers, four times five numbers, six times four numbers, three times three numbers (though of course compared to the one times six the rest would have been chickenfeed, but the monthly deposits would have been much higher)

Are you interested in the system?

Alright, I'm in a sharing mood - basically you have to pick six numbers and in each box change just one. This doesn't guarantee a jackpot, but greatly increases the probability when 3 or 4 numbers are drawn that you'll get multiple wins, and if five are drawn multiple larger wins.

There is still luck involved obviously, but over time test results show that to enter regularly is to reap the rewards.

Other things to consider is using numbers in high 30's and 40's because many regular players have chosen their numbers from birthdays which can only go up to 31. So if the higher numbers are drawn the prizemoney spread is less.

And if you don't win again and again? apparently the money goes into hospitals and stuff, which is something.

I'm still mindful of the bloke who took out first prize one week, and then again the very next week. Could it be that luck vs statistical analysis occasionally wins? Seems to be the case in this case...

[Delta40]

I don't know where you live but at christmas here the house decorated with the most awesome festive lights gets their electricity bill paid for (I think) 3 months. I mean, the people that can afford to go out and bedeck their home in order to win can bloody well afford to pay their electricity!!! It doesn't make sense to me. I'd sooner give it to the families that struggle to make ends meet. There is nothing charitable about this event at all!

Throw it in the bin MM and demand that you get a discount at the end of each year for paying before the due date instead.

[MystyrMystyry]

Burnt to a cinder with mucho satisfaction!