Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Last week a bunch of employees at a Nebraska meat packing plant (I’m sorry, but that sounds like such a depressing job) won the largest PowerBall jackpot ever, clocking in at around $315 million dollars. That’s a lot of dough.

New York doesn’t participate in PowerBall, but we do have the “Mega Millions” lottery here, which is basically the same thing, only different, kind of like Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

By the way, if I’m drinking soda, I prefer Pepsi.

Earl and I, being the gamblers that we tend to be, actively play Mega Millions when it gets up into the three digit million numbers. We figure that if the universe is going to have us win, we’re going to win big so we might as well save our bucks up and go for the gusto.

We go to extremes like that in almost all facets of our life together.

I also play in the shared tickets at work. I hate to see what happens to the company the day after we hit it big on a shared ticket, especially since our entire division is playing!

Anyways, like most folks I’ve often daydreamed about what we’d do with our winnings. Earl and I have signed a contract to the universe stating that 10 percent of the winning amount, before taxes, would go to a charity, most likely Rosie O’Donnell’s For All Kids Foundation. We’d also go out of our way to make sure all of our family members were well taken care of and able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

But what to do with the rest?

I’d like to take a portion of the remaining money and invest it in quality children’s programming. I’d like to resurrect non-violent Saturday morning shows. I’ve mentioned numerous times that I’m a huge fan of “Shazam!” and “The Secrets of Isis”. I’d like to see programming like that, perhaps with a bigger budget than they had the first time around, updated and brought back to the living rooms across the country. There would have to be some tweaking to hold today’s kid’s attention in this rapidly paced world, but I think with the right elements, it can be done.

On the flip side, we’d probably use a portion of our winnings to further gay and lesbian causes, especially for those rural gay teens that think they’re freaks and not worthy of a quality life, simply because they’re gay.

The world is a scary place these days. If I had a million dollars, I’d like to make it a little less scarier.

It’s snowing like crazy outside. Earl has gone to the local casino to play in a poker tournament. He just called me to tell me he hit a straight flush at three-card poker while waiting for the tournament to start.

Looks like we’re going out to dinner tonight!

I’m thinking I’m going to have to run the snowblower today. I was hoping to not have to do that again this winter. As usual, Mother Nature wins.

I was doing some random search on Google for something in Syracuse when I stumbled across a website dedicated to the children’s show I watched as a young lad. Now off the air,The Magic Toy Shop holds the record for the longest running locally produced children’s television program.

It’s a shame that wholesome kids shows like this have sort of fallen out of favor with families.

Like many, many people in the U.S., last night Earl and I watched “American Idol”, where 12 guys did their best to earn a spot in the final dozen contestants (six girls and six guys). Going into last night’s episode, I wasn’t really sure what to expect of the guys and while there were some really bad performances (Bobby Bennett’s rendition of “Copacabana” was absolutely dreadful), I was thoroughly impressed by four performances. They would be Ace Young’s “Father Figure” (he makes Earl swoon), Chris Daughtry’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” (he gets a “woof”), Elliott Yamin’s “If You Really Love Me” (excellent performance) and my absolute favorite, Taylor Hicks’s “Levon”. While this was not Taylor’s best performance of the show thus far, it was an excellent, entertaining and memorable rendition of the Elton John classic. What I especially enjoyed was Taylor’s banter with the ever-present Ryan Seacrest after the performance. Taylor is absolutely consumed by his passion for music. It is a mighty rare thing to see someone so engulfed by what they love. His body is ever-moving to his own rhythm. He feels joy while he sings and he conveys that to those that he’s performing for. It’s obvious that he loves being in front of an audience. And he’s great at it.

I don’t know if Taylor is going to be the next American Idol. In many ways, he doesn’t fit the image painted by today’s pop music demands. He’s all real, there’s no façade and he’s extremely talented. I would hate to see the pop music machine get it’s hooks into him and try to cookie cutter him into something he’s not.

He’s too good for that.

Last month, Gillette released the latest in shaving technology to the consumer masses. Introducing the Gillette Fusion, five blades packed really close together with a sixth blade on the back so you can trim under your nose or around your stylish goatee.

It clocks in at $11.99 for just the razor. As a plus, the razor is powered to vibrate so that you can really get in close.

Five blades. Wow. Isn’t that a bit much?

When the Mach III came out a number of years ago, I was hesitant to pick one up. After all, my trusty Sensor (without the Excel part) had done wonders for me for a number of years and why did I need an extra blade? Then I started shaving my head and admittedly the Mach III made the task a little bit easier. I’ve been content for the most part with the Mach III ever since. The price does throw one into slight sticker shock, but once you grow a beard so that you use the blades as little as possible, it’s not too bad on the budget. For the most part I’m happy with the Mach III.

But five blades? I don’t think my head could take it. Refills for the new Fusion are $13.29 for four blades. They say a blade lasts three or four shaves, so that’s over $100.00 a month for a clean, close shave. Not including shaving cream. One has to wonder if the money would be better spent by going to a barbershop with a really hot barber doing the honors.

In an effort to make this marketing campaign successful, Gillette has also released a new line of shaving gels, foams and other accessories with the “Fusion” name. Has shaving gel or shaving foam changed that much over the years that there needs to be more and more versions of it? I mean, it’s either a foam, or a shaving gel that turns to foam when rubbed. How hard can it be? As a teenager I borrowed my father’s Barbasol and found that to be more than sufficient. I was a diehard Barbasol user for many years and still use it on occasion. I must admit that as I’ve grown older I’ve expanded to an environmentally safe shaving cream for my head. Have you ever looked at the ingredients in a can of shaving cream? Small wonder my face always felt like it was on fire after shaving.

I think I’ll keep the beard.