Grains

I'm a fan of good, hearty bread for sandwiches. I don't just mean a solid loaf of wheat over white bread. I mean really serious loaves. Like when the bread makers (or bakers, if you will) get really into it and throw a bunch of seeds on top of the bread. That's good stuff. Included in this breed of grain-topped bread are the 7 grain and 9 grain varieties, which I feel are somewhat standard. Good hearty bread makes a good sandwich makes a good person.

On a recent shopping trip, however, I was blown away by the impressive choice of grain-topped breads. I had to take a picture:

Hopefully all the loaves there are identifiable. Basically, Pepperidge Farms has outdone themselves with 7 grain bread, 9 grain bread, 12 grain bread, and 15 grain bread. It's a really interesting progression when you study it closely. All but one are odd. All but one are divisible by three. There must be some secret code there. Like a Fibonacci sequence or something. And think about it, if you made a big ol' sandwich and used a slice of each, you'd have forty-three grains on your sandwich! Alas I just went with one loaf (the 15 grain, obviously.)

The Lottery

I really don't like the lottery.  I read a quote that said the lottery is a tax on people who don't understand probability.  I think this is true.  But the big reason I don't like the lottery is that I think it's a tax on working class people who shouldn't be throwing money out like that.  I'm not asserting that I know what's best for people.  I also don't know what the numbers are, but I'm guessing the majority of people who are buying lottery tickets should really be holding on to that extra few bucks to spend on some necessity.  

So here's the idea.  What if you could turn the lottery system into a savings vehicle for those would-be ticket buyers.  When someone buys a ticket, put some of it into savings for them rather than putting it towards the lottery.  (Maybe for a $5 ticket, $4 dollars would go into a savings account and the other $1 would be gambled.)  This way there's the gambling part but the buyer actually gets their money back at the end.... All this being said, I don't think that it'd ever work.  

A little experiment

Pedro came up with this idea when his mom sent him a Barack Obama cut-out in the mail. He thought it'd be funny if we made some videos of us chilling with Barack -- watching TV, having a beer, etc. I took his idea and tried it out with photos only...

Check it out: barackmovesin.blogspot.com