Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Candy Spelling Wins Big!

You can find this report on Candy Spelling all over the internet. I found it at http://www.usmagazine.com/candy-spelling-wins-180000-at-slot-machine.

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Candy Spelling won $180,000 at a slot machine at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, TMZ.com reports.

Spelling – mother to pregnant 90210 star Tori – has an estimated worth of $600 million.

She was playing the high-limit slots (maximum bet: $1,000) when she scored the jackpot.

This is Spelling's second large Vegas win. A year ago, she won $200,000 at the Bellagio slots.

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So Candy Spelling wins big? Yeah, right.

Let's put this thing into perspective before you go running out to your casino and start banging those one-armed bandits at $1000 a pop. You should gambler as conservatively as Candy did.

Pick your level:
1) Candy Spelling is worth 600 million dollars (nice!), and she won $180,000 at $1000 a pop.

2) You are worth 60 million dollars (wouldn't that be nice), and you win $18,000 at $100 a pop.

3) You are worth 6 million dollars (we wish), and you win $1,800 at $10 a pop. (Oh, this extra 1800 is really going to change my life.)

4) You are worth $600,000 (a few of us), and you win $180 at $1.00 a pop. (Ohhh, how exciting--now I can fill up the gas tank 3 times without have to touch my six hundred thou.)

5) You are worth $60,000 (some of us), and you win $18 at .10 cents a pop. (Ohhh, I'm rich, I got $18 to add to my 60 grand!)

6) You are worth $6000 (many of us), and you win $1.80 at .01 cent a pop. (Ohh baby, I'm on fire now--this machine is hot!)

7) You are worth $600 (too many of us), and you win .18 cents at .001 cents a pop. (Ohh, it's life changing.)

See? The payoff sucks. It almost always does in a casino. $180,000 is not going to change Candy's life anymore than $1.80 is going to change yours if you are at level 6, with six grand in the bank betting it a tenth of a penny at a time.

She did not win a thing, relatively speaking. Her payoff was a mere 180 to 1. If she had played a state-run Cash-3 and hit 3 numbers, her payoff would have been 500 to 1.

Thus, had she put a grand on a winning Cash-3 number (as she dared to wager on each push of the slot machine), Candy would have won a cool half million.

Furthermore, her odds of winning are better in a Cash-3: a reasonable one in a thousand. I'm sure her slots odds are closer to one in a million, or something like that.

So why does Candy Spelling play the slots?

It's not going to make her rich--the payoff of 180 to one is too low and she's already super rich anyhow.

It's not going to break her--the per play is too low--a thousand dollars to her is like a penny to us if we have $6000 in the bank. She could spend a hundred thousand a day (one hundred pushes) every day of the year (36 million a year), and it would still take about 8 years before she went through close to half of her fortune (280 million).

--[That's like one of us regular mortals spending a hundred pennies every day (one dollar--$365 a year), which is a rather mild habit for a gambler--it's not even worth the trip to the casino].

So back to the question. Why does Candy play the slots? She plays it because she is a gambler--if she is a gmabler, then she needs the excitement. She plays it because she has to play--she plays it for the thrill. It is what gamblers seek. The rush. They play. They play. They have to play. They play like children on a very expensive playground. Fortunately, Candy can afford the ride.

Now, if they present her with a slot that costs $100,000 a push, it would get interesting.

Candy would now be playing in the sadistic playground that the rest of us degenrates play in.

Let's do the numbers.


Pick your level:
1) Candy Spelling is worth 600 million dollars, and she bets $100,000 a pop--trying to win $18 million (nice).

2) You are worth 60 million dollars, and you bet $10,000 a pop--trying to win $ 1.8 million.

3) You are worth 6 million dollars, and you bet $1000 a pop--trying to win $180,000.

4) You are worth $600,000, and you bet $100 a pop--trying to win $18,000.

5) You are worth $60,000, and you bet $10 a pop--trying to win $1800.

6) You are worth $6000, and you bet $1.00 a pop--trying to win $180.

7) You are worth $600, and you bet .10 cents a pop--trying to win $18 dollars.

Looks innocent, right? Trust me, it is not innocent at all.

Let's use level 6 as our sample because level 6 is what most of us are familiar with and can afford--the dollar machine with a jackpot of $1000 and a back up prize around $250--in this case $180. [That's right, folks. I am betting that Candy did not win a jackpot--she won a back up prize--jackpots rarely pay out at a meager 180-to-1. To the casino industry's credit, the payoff ratio for jackpots is ALWAYS much higher than 180-to-1. The trick is that jackpots don't pay off very often. So candy was probably chasing a jackpot of $1 million, perhaps, and ended up with a back up prize of $180,000.]

So, let's say that you have $6000 in the bank and you spend $100 a day at $1 a push chasing a thousand dollar jackpot and a measly $180 back up prize. That works out to $7,300 a year--say good bye to you 6 grand in the bank.

I know that this souns like a silly example, spending a hundred dollars a day chasing a thousand-dollar prize (and a measly $180 back up prize)--but this is what most of us do.

Or we spend a thousand dollars a day chasing a $10,000 prize, which is exactly the same thing. In a year you would have blow $73,000. Say good bye to your sixty grand. The only hope is that you hit the jackpot a FEW times, and remember that jackpots rarely hit.

In Candy Spelling's case (level 1), using our new model, at a hundred pushes per day (at a hundred grand per push), she would be spending $ten million per day. By the end of the year, she would have spent over $730 million dollars. Say good bye fortune.

And if there were a slot machine that costs $100,00 per push, Candy Spelling would play it. She would have to--because she is a gambler.

If she didn't play it, then she's not a gambler.

Trust me on this.

Preston

Sunday, June 8, 2008

What Is Wrong with Being a Small-Breasted Woman?

Listening to the radio the other day, I heard a news report about a website for free breast implants.

Myfreeimplants.com

So, now women who cannot afford implants can get visitors to the website to pay . . . the money does not go to the women . . . it goes straight to the doctors who are signed up to do the surgeries . . . so far about 20 women have raised enough money to have the surgeries done . . .

This is America. People are free to spend their money on what they want to spend it on. If you want to spend your discretionary funds helping a stranger to increase the size of her breasts, go for it. In these tough economic times, those of us with extra money are the lucky ones, so let's spend it. Let's hire a few doctors and other professionals and open up more websites like this!

Here is a list of suggestions:

My free cancer treatment (money goes straight to the doctor)

My free aids cocktail (money goes straight to the doctor)

My free bachelor's degree (for kids who have no way to pay for college--money goes straight to the college)

Save My Foreclosed Home for free (money goes straight to the mortgager)

My free food (for hungry children--the money goes straight to the neighborhood grocery store)

My free reposessed car paid for (the money goes straight to the bank)

My free utility turned back on (the money goes straight to the electric company, gas company, water company, etc.)

My free gas in my car for a few months (the money goes straight to the neighborhood gas station)

My free gambling tab at the casino paid (the money goes directly to Charles Barkley--just a joke--I had to throw that one in there--Charles Barkley is still the man)

Preston

Emile Griffith

"I keep thinking how strange it is ... I kill a man and people understand and forgive me. However, I love a man, and to so many people this is an unforgivable sin; this makes me an evil person. So, even though I never went to jail, I have been in prison almost all my life."


Emile Griffith, now 70, beat his opponent so badly that he (Benny Paret) died a few days later. Emile says that Paret had taunted him with gay slurs before the match.

And here is the irony as Griffith sees it: Society lauds Griffith’s punching skills (which led to the death of a man), but despises his sexual orientation (which leads to his physical love of men).

It is indeed ironic.

The book is called NINE . . . TEN . . . AND OUT! THE TWO WORLDS OF EMILE GRIFFITH, published byDiBella Entertainment.

Preston

Gay Public Kiss Versus Straight Public Kiss in Seattle

Interesting . . . I don't know how to respond to this without getting political, but should there be one rule for gay and one rule for straight as regards public displays of affection in the United States of America? I am told that the camera at Mariners' games regularly pans on a kissing couple, but up to this point that couple has always been heterosexual.

There's another gay-themed topic I'm googling. The openly gay boxer Emile Griffith I think has come out with a new book. Let me see if I can find something about it on the web.

Preston


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Originally posted at
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110ap_lesbian_kiss.html

Lesbian kiss at Seattle ballpark stirs debate
By MANUEL VALDES ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


SEATTLE -- Most of the time, a kiss is just a kiss in the stands at Seattle Mariners games. The crowd hardly even pays attention when fans smooch.

But then last week, a lesbian complained that an usher at Safeco Field asked her to stop kissing her date because it was making another fan uncomfortable.

The incident has exploded on local TV, on talk radio and in the blogosphere and has touched off a debate over public displays of affection in generally gay-friendly Seattle.

"Certain individuals have not yet caught up. Those people see a gay or lesbian couple and they stare or say something," said Josh Friedes of Equal Rights Washington. "This is one of the challenges of being gay. Everyday things can become sources of trauma."

As the Mariners played the Boston Red Sox on May 26, Sirbrina Guerrero and her date were approached in the third inning by an usher who told them their kissing was inappropriate, Guerrero said.

The usher, Guerrero said, told them he had received a complaint from a woman nearby who said that there were kids in the crowd of nearly 36,000 and that parents would have to explain why two women were kissing.

"I was really just shocked," Guerrero said. "Seattle is so gay-friendly. There was a couple like seven rows ahead making out. We were just showing affection."

On Thursday, after an internal investigation, the Mariners said in a news release that their seating staff had acted appropriately, and the couple was approached because of their behavior - which included "making out" and "groping" in the stands - and not their sexual orientation.

"We have a strict nondiscrimination policy at the Seattle Mariners and at Safeco Field, and when we do enforce the code of conduct it is based on behavior, not on the identity of those involved," Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale said earlier this week.

In the release, the Mariners said the women were told they could continue to kiss, but that they had to "tone it down."

"The women refused to modify their behavior, began swearing at the seating hosts and complained that they were being singled out for their sexual orientation," the club said.

The code of conduct - announced before each game - specifically mentions public displays of affection that are "not appropriate in a public, family setting." Hale said those standards are based on what a "reasonable person" would find inappropriate.

Guerrero denied she and her date were groping each other, saying that along with eating garlic fries, they were giving each other brief kisses.

On Tuesday, Guerrero said a Mariners director of guest services had apologized to her. The team spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that.

After the story broke, the Mariners were blasted by the sex-advice columnist Dan Savage, who wrote about the incident on the blog of the Stranger, an alternative weekly paper.

"They go out of their way to say it's a quote-unquote family setting," Savage said. "As a gay season-ticket holder, we've never been quite sure what that means exactly. I constantly see people making out. My son has noticed and asked, `Do they show the ballgame on women's foreheads?'"

Savage called for a "kiss-in" to protest against the Mariners.

Web sites have been swamped with blog postings for and against Guerrero and her date. And the story has people talking in Seattle.

"I would be uncomfortable" seeing public displays of affection between lesbians or gay men, said Jim Ridneour, a 54-year-old taxi driver. "I don't think it's right seeing women kissing in public. If I had my family there, I'd have to explain what's going on."

"It all depends on the degree," Mark Ackerman said as he waited for a hot dog outside Safeco Field before Wednesday's game. "Even for heterosexual couples."

Since the incident, Guerrero's job and her past have come under scrutiny. She works at a bar known for scantily clad women and was a contestant on the MTV reality show "A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila," in which women and men compete for the affection of a bisexual Internet celebrity.

"People are saying it's 15 more minutes for my career," Guerrero said of the ballpark furor, "but this is not making me look very good."

In 2007, an Oregon transit agency chief apologized after a lesbian teenager was kicked off a bus when a passenger complained about her kissing another girl.

Also in 2007, a gay rights group protested a Kansas City, Mo., restaurant they said ejected four women because two of them kissed, and a Texas state trooper was placed on probation in 2004 for telling two gay men who were kissing at the state Capitol that homosexual conduct was illegal in Texas.

"There's a double standard. That's the bottom line," said Pat Griffin, director of the It Takes a Team! Education Campaign, an initiative from the Women's Sports Foundation to eliminate homophobia in sports.
---

On the Net:

Seattle Mariners: http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com

Equal Rights Washington: http://www.equalrightswashington.org

Lipshitz 6

Lipshitz 6
Reading T Cooper for Christmas

Punk Blood

Punk Blood
Jay Marvin

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Anonymous Rex

Anonymous Rex
Reading Eric Garcia for Christmas

Vinegar Hill

Vinegar Hill
Reading A. Manette Ansay for Christmas

Nicotine Dreams

Nicotine Dreams
Reading Katie Cunningham for Christmas

Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz
Pulitzer Prize Winner!!!

Edwige Danticat

Edwige Danticat
New Year's Reading

Greed

Greed
This Brother Is Scary Good

One More Chance

One More Chance
The genius Is At It Again/The Rapper CHIEF aka Sherwin Allen

Sandrine's Letter

Sandrine's Letter
Check out Sandrine's Letter To Tomorrow. You will like it, I insist.

All or Nothing

All or Nothing

Editorial Reviews of All or Nothing

New York Times--". . . a cartographer of autodegradation . . . Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu — the chained (mis)fortunes of the players, their vanities and grotesqueries, their quasi-philosophical ruminations on chance. Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of the addict’s daily ritual, neither glorifying nor vilifying the matter at hand."

Florida Book Review--". . . Allen examines the flaming abyss compulsive gambling burns in its victims’ guts, self-esteem and bank accounts, the desperate, myopic immediacy it incites, the self-destructive need it feeds on, the families and relationships it destroys. For with gamblers, it really is all or nothing. Usually nothing. Take it from a reviewer who’s been there. Allen is right on the money here."

Foreword Magazine--"Not shame, not assault, not even murder is enough reason to stop. Allen’s second novel, All or Nothing, is funny, relentless, haunting, and highly readable. P’s inner dialogues illuminate the grubby tragedy of addiction, and his actions speak for the train wreck that is gambling."

Library Journal--"Told without preaching or moralizing, the facts of P's life express volumes on the destructive power of gambling. This is strongly recommended and deserves a wide audience; an excellent choice for book discussion groups."—Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH

LEXIS-NEXIS--"By day, P drives a school bus in Miami. But his vocation? He's a gambler who craves every opportunity to steal a few hours to play the numbers, the lottery, at the Indian casinos. Allen has a narrative voice as compelling as feeding the slots is to P." Betsy Willeford is a Miami-based freelance book reviewer. November 4, 2007

Publisher’s Weekly--"Allen’s dark and insightful novel depicts narrator P’s sobering descent into his gambling addiction . . . The well-written novel takes the reader on a chaotic ride as P chases, finds and loses fast, easy money. Allen (Churchboys and Other Sinners) reveals how addiction annihilates its victims and shows that winning isn’t always so different from losing."

Kirkus Review--"We gamble to gamble. We play to play. We don't play to win." Right there, P, desperado narrator of this crash-'n'-burn novella, sums up the madness. A black man in Miami, P has graduated from youthful nonchalance (a '79 Buick Electra 225) to married-with-a-kid pseudo-stability, driving a school bus in the shadow of the Biltmore. He lives large enough to afford two wide-screen TVs, but the wife wants more. Or so he rationalizes, as he hits the open-all-night Indian casinos, "controlling" his jones with a daily ATM maximum of $1,000. Low enough to rob the family piggy bank for slot-machine fodder, he sinks yet further, praying that his allergic 11-year-old eat forbidden strawberries—which will send him into a coma, from which he'll emerge with the winning formula for Cash 3 (the kid's supposedly psychic when he's sick). All street smarts and inside skinny, the book gives readers a contact high that zooms to full rush when P scores $160,000 on one lucky machine ("God is the God of Ping-ping," he exults, as the coins flood out). The loot's enough to make the small-timer turn pro, as he heads, flush, to Vegas to cash in. But in Sin City, karmic payback awaits. Swanky hookers, underworld "professors" deeply schooled in sure-fire systems to beat the house, manic trips to the CashMyCheck store for funds to fuel the ferocious need—Allen's brilliant at conveying the hothouse atmosphere of hell-bent gaming. Fun time in the Inferno.

At Books and Books

At Books and Books
Me And Vicki at Our Reading

Bio


Preston L. Allen is the recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature and the Sonja H. Stone Prize in Fiction for his short story collection Churchboys and Other Sinners (Carolina Wren Press 2003). His works have appeared in numerous publications including The Seattle Review, The Crab Orchard Review, Asili, Drum Voices, and Gulfstream Magazine; and he has been anthologized in Here We Are: An Anthology of South Florida Writers, Brown Sugar: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction, Miami Noir, and the forthcoming Las Vegas Noir. His fourth novel, All Or Nothing, chronicles the life of a small-time gambler who finally hits it big. Preston Allen teaches English and Creative Writing in Miami, Florida.