I'll take that in $20s and $50s

I was feeling particularly dumb last night. I stayed at work until 8pm putting together a project requested at 5:15 for the following morning, but only realized after turning off my computer and standing by the elevator that I hadn't billed a free dinner. My initial reaction to the thought of going back, ordering and waiting was "screw that," so I left. But walking to the subway, I thought it would be a good idea to wander the neighborhood stopping in at random restaurants and asking if they accept walk-up orders from people with corporate internet accounts; of course none do, it has to go through the system. But that didn't stop me from walking a big loop of lower Manhattan, checking several places, and far overrunning the amount of time it would have taken to just order and wait while playing on the computer.

So, when I got to the deli near home I decided I owed $5 in stupid tax, and got a ticket for the $150 million lotto drawing for tonight I'd heard the secretaries yapping about. Now, I know I don't live in the most intellectual of areas, but I need to say something about the lotto thing. The deli on my corner must take in more business than an OTB betting parlor. People are INSANE. It's my hood's social scene. All ages and languages line up out the door day after day for scratch tickets and power ball, hollering and whooping like the guys in funny vests trading debentures on the exchange floor. And it got me thinking... How come there has never been a trivia lotto? Game shows and reality shows have started to mix (MTV's 'Boiling Points' is suprisingly watchable; the first MTV production I've enjoyed sitting through since Singled Out's last episode with Jenny McCarthy's breasts), and those people don't even know they're playing. Why not bring to the general public the chance to use arbitrary skills and knowledge to profit? If a chance at lotto winnings increased if you scratched of the correct way to spell "yield" or somesuch, urban dropout rates would plunge like nothing you ever saw. And besides, I never get to California where they have all those game shows... Win Ben Stein's Money was geographically discriminatory!