Monday, June 28, 2010

Outsourcing Fortune Sources?

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Last night at work, a customer took out his wallet to pay for his purchases. In addition to pulling out a few bills of various denominations, he also inadvertantly pulled out the fortune from a fortune cookie.

I joked with him that fortunes were, unfortunately, not acceptable as legal tender. As it turns out, he's a little like me -- he likes to save his fortunes. I told him about my writing about fortunes, but I didn't have the chance to give the URL for this site.

I did ask to see the fortune that came out of his wallet. He let me see it, and copy it. It had to be one of the strangest fortunes I have ever encountered:

"Affirm it, visualize it, believe it, and it will actualize itself."

That's not what you would usually find in your fortune cookie. That actually sounds like something taken from Tony Robbins.

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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Not Doing THAT Again

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Last time, I mentioned that I had had a few more customers ask me to run Powerball numbers for them based on what was on the fortune from their fortune cookie. I did, but I made them fill out playslips -- unlike the jerk from a couple of weeks ago.

The first one came in last Friday night. He wanted me to punch them in manually. I pointed him in the direction of the lottery station. When he asked why I couldn't punch them in manually, I think I told him something along the lines of my not wanting a line forming if other customers started coming in. I think I must have convinced him, because he filled out a playslip for me.

To be fair, I did show him how to fill out the playslip. And I did take a look at the fortune and the playslip once he was finished, to be certain he had filled it out correctly. I also took a look at the fortune, and wrote it down. Here's what it said:

"Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgement."

I didn't make note of his numbers. Since he did fill out his own playslip, I didn't see the need to treat him like I did the jerk. I hope this was one case where I was making good judgement.

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Monday, June 21, 2010

Just Needed A Little Instruction

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You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, I had a total jerk come in to where I work, and demand that I manually input numbers from a fortune cookie because he was just too lazy to fill out a Powerball playslip. In the past few days, I've had two more customers bring fortunes to me and want to play the numbers. There was a difference on both of these occasions. These customers filled out playslips.

The most recent was last night. A lady came in, and put four fortunes on the counter. She told me that she wanted to play the numbers on the fortunes for Powerball and Mega Millions, but she didn't know how to go about it.

Fortunately, things were on the quiet side at the time. I pointed her toward the lottery stand, and I told her bring me playslips for both, and a pencil.

When she returned, I placed the playslips side by side, and I told her, "Powerball and Mega Millions are basically played the same." Pointing to the two sections of the playslips, I said, "You pick five numbers from the top section, and then one in the bottom section for each play."

The lady took the Powerball playslip, and the first fortune. She marked the numbers as I had showed her, and asked me if she was doing it right with the first one. (She was.) She took the numbers from the other fortunes and filled them out, then repeated the process with the Mega Millions playslip. Once she was finished, I ran the playslips through the terminal, and handed her back the playslips and the tickets.

Once she filled out the playslips, she was finished with the fortunes, so she let me have them. Here is what the fortunes said:

"Listen to the wisdom of the old."
"Your ability to find the silly in the serious will take you far."
"Your ambitious nature will help you make a name for yourself."
"Your virtues are priceless treasures."

I'm not going to play any of her numbers, nor will I mention them here. She was being far too courteous for me to do that to her.

I will say one thing, though. That second fortune definitely applies to me.

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Saturday, June 5, 2010

Baci, Baci, Bang, Bang

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About a week ago, I was in my local World Market, and I saw those little boxes of Baci back on the shelves. I hadn't seen them for a few months, and I had been wondering if World Market would be getting them back in stock. Naturally, I picked up a box.

It was a few days before I unwrapped the Baci. It was one of those things where I needed just a little bit of time to properly appreciate the chocolates. And of course, there were the love notes hidden the foil wrapper and the chocolate. Here's what the notes said this time around:

"Love directs your course." -- Kahlil Gibran
"Love is blind to faults, friendship loves them." -- Anonymous

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