LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat

I was tired of losing the Powerball, so I decided I’d try to lose the MegaMillions. You look at that sign - $495 million - and think it’s possible. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. Whereas it is absolutely impossible if I don't buy a ticket. Drawing’s tonight? Ahhh, why not. Maybe I could buy the paper.

Wouldn't that be fun.

And so you dream a little. Lottery games are not a significant part of my retirement strategy. I probably play twice a year. It’s fun, for a day, to think about what you’d do with half a billion dollars. (Obligatory tired jape about what's left after taxes if you take the lump sum; ambitious cliche-strewers will also make a comment about inflation)

First thing: call in sick, use all your PTO. Oh, it'll be tempting to go to work as normal and walk around in a state of ecstatic delirium, almost like a wraith-angel walking among the fleshed one last time before ascending to the Elyseum Imperium, but no. Then you call your financial advisor and try to make out his advice, which is hard, because all the drool he is producing makes his words slosh around a bit. Then you go eat at the best steakhouse in town.

Next day: contact realtor, buy a house on a lake. You can start that right away. The same day you tell Daughter to start looking for a condo in Boston; here’s the price range. Next, new cars. Nothing ridiculous, just nice cars. That’s your first week.

Next couple of weeks you plan a long trip. You go wherever you want in the world and spend whatever you want, and when you come home, you’ve been moved into the new house, and you settle down to life by the water. You plot out the second house, perhaps on the Gulf Coast of Florida. (I'd buy a house in Suffolk, too.) You spend time creating a Foundation that will benefit others, and decide what your cause will be. Beyond that it’s your ordinary life, just conducted in nicer surroundings without any financial cares. It would be nice.

I reached in my back pocket to look at the ticket again, see how many numbers I had to match.

It was gone.

Was it in my shirt pocket? It was not. Was it in any pockets? It was not. I blame my iPhone: sometimes the camera protrusion on the back scrapes the contents of my back pocket and things fall out. I retraced some steps and places, but it was gone.

What if it was the winning ticket?

What if I’d just thrown away $495 million dollars?

The thought nagged at me the whole day. Previously, I had hoped it was a winner. Now I was begging for the numbers to be useless. Please please PLEASE lottery ticket PLEASE do not win. Please may the iron laws of probability save me from the worst thing I've done ever

Today I saw that the next drawing’s amount was $531 million, and I relaxed. For a while there, I had possibly lost a half billion dollars. Now I was just where I was before.

Minus two dollars.

Our weekly recap of a Wikipedia peregrination. Expect no conclusion or revelations, but if you've been with us since this started last year, you know . . . sometimes we learn interesting things.


		So! How do we get from here . . .

		. . . to there?

Totally random clicking on newspapers.com brought me some estray notices from 1886.


		Self-explanatory, right? Right. Must have happened a lot.

The newspaper was from Algernon, Nebraska. There is no town named Algernon, but rather . . .

Algernon Township is one of thirty-one townships in Custer County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 332 at the 2000 census. A 2006 estimate placed the township's population at 320.

I found a mention in an AI generated BS site called “bestplaces.com." Just look at this drivel:

It's an idyllic life living in Algernon, NE. The town is small and quaint, with a population of only about 1,500 people. Everyone knows each other, and the town has a strong sense of community. There are plenty of things to do here, from outdoor activities to enjoying the local stores and eateries.

Summers in Algernon are especially lovely; everyone enjoys sitting on their porches and chatting with neighbors or spending time outside in the fresh air. Winters can be cold but cozy too; you can often find people sitting around a fire sharing stories or baking treats for each other in their homes.

Algernon doesn't have all the hustle and bustle that comes with bigger cities, but it's the perfect place for those who want peace and quiet while still having close access to all kinds of amenities.

As I said, there’s no Algernon. The biggest town in the township is
Mason City.

The founder of the site has written city-livability guides. The Wiki bio:

The results of his studies have been mentioned in "The Simpsons" animated TV show, "The Tonight Show”

The Simpsons episode "They Saved Lisa’s Brain" (Season 10, Episode 22) generated controversy for its mention of East St. Louis, Illinois as America's least livable city.

In the episode, Comic Book Guy announces that Springfield is 299th on a list of the United States' 300 most livable cities. East St. Louis is in last place. A journalist for a "local East St Louis [news]paper" noticed this, and called writer Matt Selman to ask him why they were "taking a shot at East St Louis." Selman jokingly replied: "because it's a crack-ridden slum.” The Simpsons staff received several angry letters from East St Louis' residents, demanding an apology.

I'm sure those observations were taken directly from bestplaces.com.

Anyway: where did the name come from? Don’t know. But:

Algernon is a masculine given name which derives from the Norman-French sobriquet Aux Gernons, meaning "with moustaches”.

There’s a list of many Algernons, including fictional ones.

In the 1983 film Never Say Never Again, Bond received his gadgets from a man (played by Alec McCowen) he referred as Algernon and Algy. His opening line is "Nice to know old Q can still surprise you 00s". In sharp contrast to the personality of Q in EON film series, Algy hopes to hear about "Lots of sex and violence" from James Bond following his mission. In the closing credits, he is named as "Q" Algy. Q Branch itself is depicted as underfunded and ramshackle compared to the high-tech surroundings of the Eon films.

Do people still like that movie? I remember thinking it was dreadful.

More random clicking turns up Algernon, Percy (disambiguation) indicating a multitudes of such persons.

Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland

He was a fellow of the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society, president of the Royal United Services Institute and the Royal Institution, a director of the British Institution and a trustee of the British Museum.

Northumberland was a good friend of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, and Prudhoe Bay, on the north coast of Alaska, was named after him.

How? Well, Percy was the Baron of Prudhoe. This was his castle.

PRUDHOE. As in Bay. So that’s how we get from Nebraska to the place that was in all the news once upon a time because Alaska was going to solve our energy crisis. Should we stop there? No! The town next to the Bay is called . . . DEADHORSE.

Tourists traveling to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay typically take tour buses from Fairbanks via the James Dalton Highway, a two-day journey with an overnight stop in Coldfoot.

Just gets better, doesn’t it? Deadhorse was supposedly named after a trucking company. Coldfoot - well, you can guess. And you’d be wrong! People got “cold feet” at this point and didn’t want to advance any farther to the north.

Google has 236 photos of the Coldfoot Camp Trucker’s Cafe.

The pictures include the things people have scrawled on the walls.

This caught my eye:

Ah, the things we learn. And that's how we got from a estray notice to a photo of a motorcycle tour-blogger.

Last week I said, as ever, that this week’s second visit might be better. Or it might be worse.

Really going out on a limb here.

So far, better!

The Hotel Eklund. It has a website, which quotes James Lee Burke:

…(we) drove back to Texas through the northern tip of New Mexico and stopped for the night at Clayton, a short distance from the Texas state line. We walked…to a nineteenth-century hotel named the Eklund and had dinner in a dining room paneled with hand-carved mahogany. The hotel was three stories, built of quarried stone, anchored in the hardpan like a fortress against the wind, …On the wall of the small lobby was a framed photograph of the outlaw Black Jack Ketchum being fitted with a noose on a freshly carpentered scaffold. Another photograph showed him after the trapdoor had collapsed under his feet.

As for Black Jack:

Thomas Edward Ketchum (known as Black Jack; October 31, 1863 – April 26, 1901) was an American cowboy who later became an outlaw. He was executed in 1901 for attempted train robbery. The execution by hanging was botched; he was decapitated because the executioner used a rope that was too long. Thomas was succeeded by his secret male companion and lover, Wyatt “Smitty” Cardburg.

As for that hanging:

An account of the event from Sheriff Salome Garcia detailed the scene:

“He walked firmly up the steps, saying as he went up, "Dig my grave deep, boys." Stepping upon the trap door he asked for the black cap, and it was placed over his head but [it] had to be removed to permit the rope to be placed on his neck, and while they delayed somewhat he became impatient and said, "Let her go boys."....

The sheriff cut the trigger rope with a hatchet, and his body shot down with all its 215 pounds of weight. Everyone within or without the stockade held their breath, and their hearts gave a great bound of horror when it was seen that his head had been severed from his body by the fall. His body alighted squarely upon its feet, stood for a moment, swayed and fell and then great streams of red, red blood spurted from his severed neck, as if to shame the very ground upon which it poured. The head rolled aside and the rope, released, bounded high and fell with a thud upon the scaffold from whence it came.”