In the world’s largest democracy, this is how they show that they voted. A dab of ink on the middle finger, celebrities show their fans that they went through the system and at the same time have a real laugh.
I usually do the same thing when I leave the elementary school gym.
My hatred for Boston is equal to my love for hockey.
In the words of a wise friend: ‘Game seven is gonna kill me one day.’
He died later that day.
An entire year of investment comes down to a combination of socks, hat, underwear and shirt and I don’t know what else I can do. I have been saving all of my loose eyelashes, been designating all my 11:11’s. I was blessed by the Pope of Crossing Guards who ‘Bonjournée’s hundreds of exam writing students. Elliotte Friedman (above) gave me the wink and the wave on Sainte-Catherines on Easter Monday.
I’ve done all I can do.
The homeless get irritable when the sun comes out. 
‘They don’t understand the value of money,’ the ex-casino worker told us in French about children. ‘Ils ne travaillent pas, alors ils ne le comprennent pas,’ and she clicked through statistics of how many Quebecers gambled last year, from a single lotto ticket to a horse race of mortgaging a home. Because they are statistically the same.
Because dropping money on sea-doos and interior paint makes more sense than investing it in ‘sure win’ games of chance. The government runs the casinos and all forms of legal gambling, and at the same time they fund programs to assist people in their addiction to legal gambling. Similar to a store selling both the HPV virus in a capsule, and offering a five-year treatment plan to rid of the genital sores.
The value of money. Today, one loonie buys 1.04115 US dollars. This means nothing to me, but might mean something to a friend who orders American merchandise for cheaper than Canadian merchandise. One loonie buys two vegetarian samosas at the Sri Lankan grocery next to my house. This means nothing to you, but might mean something to a friend who lives in India and buys two samosas for ten rupees, equivalent to 21.6 Canadian cents. But I mean not to speak of the exchange rate and all of its flaws.
When the presenter said, ‘La valeur de l’argent,’ I instantly and unintentionally did what I hate doing: answering the lottery question. You know the one: ‘What would you do if you won the SuperMax Plus this weekend?’ I’m sure I have addressed this phrase in the past, but the conversations that ensue, entirely based on blind, greedy hope, make me cringe. But, I thought about it nonetheless. This time my answer, in my head, was that I wouldn’t do anything different than what I’m doing now. I would live in a shitty apartment, sleep on the ground, eat only foods that look like gruel (porridge, dal, sewage, cream of gruel soup, gruel from concentrate), watch playoffs at a crackhole bar, finish my French course, and go on a modest bus trip to visit California this summer. I would stay on the same route. Nothing would instantly change.
I propose a new rhetoric, or at least one similar with a different sense. If you win the lottery and you don’t feel that it is necessary to immediately go purchase something (besides a case of beer), or you don’t feel that it is necessary to immediately go to another country, or to quit the job that you are doing, or to forget about the school you are going to, then you are on the right path. My most dreaded question has evolved into a way to reevaluate priorities and values. Thank you, Gambling Conference. If millions of dollars will instantly change your present life and your plans for the future, then, like a child who is addicted to gambling, or someone profitting in the government’s genital wart program,
you need to learn the value of money.
The 1111th comment of Balls of Rice was made by the famous Norm Rockwell on Wednesday, April 13, 2011.
His prize will be announced once I come up with a name for it.
I have been waiting for the 1111th comment for several months. It happened, and I am relieved. Now to finish his prize, for myself as much as for him.
I later checked to see when exactly he posted his comment, and this is what I found:
I almost lost it. Still I am blown away.
11:11 forever.
I’ve been too busy to cut my fingernails. And at times too busy to wash my hands, so under my fingernails gets all black.
But how busy can you be that you can’t wash your hands, you might ask, that is disgusting.
Hygiene isn’t easy for everyone. And fingerfoods are the best ones.
But don’t you shower also, you might ask.
Nah.
And you have a girlfriend, you will ask.
Yeah, I don’t get it either.
So how have you been so busy, you will proceed to wonder.
Skipping school.
I get it, you’re on the hootch, you think to yourself.
Never touch the stuff. Let’s change topics.
What do you do most on the internet, you ask.
I follow about forty-five blogs, and of the five that post regularly, two are readable. And sports.
How often do you cut your fingernails, you ask pryingly, and where do you do it.
In the corner of my room, whenever I deem them too long to eat rice with my hands.
How did you get so cynical, you ask.
About fingernail hygiene or life? I don’t know, ask my parents, or the church, or the five elections in seven years, or the authors I follow.
Does every piece of writing need to have a point, you ask yourself, then myself.
I wonder that often. And if I write one without a point, does that make it poorly written, or is it possible that a reader can come up with a message themselves? Because I often write a piece, reread it later on down the road, and it means something new, and I can’t figure out what I originally meant.
Tough one, you will say.
Good writing maybe doesn’t exist, but good reading does. The subjectivity of it all is striking.
Like writing about fingernails, you suggest.
Like writing about fingernails. I love it, it could be seen as without purpose, but I see something behind it.
Fingernails are just as worthy as the sunsets in famous poetry, you say.
Or words about war, or talk about political campaigns, I say. What do you say?
I say that what you say is right, you say.
Me too.
Balls of Rice 