The Fun-A-Day January 2012 wrap-up!
The month is over, and I feel rather relieved that I will no longer have a daily frantic moment of searching for a dollar (or for a store that sells lotto) so that I can purchase a ticket and write up a blog entry before the day has ended.
So How much did I win? And how much did I lose?
here’s the rundown:
I spent $32 (day 5 was a $2 ticket).
I won 4 free tickets and a total of $11.
9 of the days yielded some kind of a prize.
The tickets that I most frequently purchased were:
Crazy Hearts (10 days)
Easy Grand (5 days)
Silver 7’s (3 days)
Triple Cash (3 days)
And That is the end of January 2012’s capitalism-cloaked Fun-A-Day experiment! Of course, in the coming days I will still need to cash in my winning tickets, trade in my “free ticket” tickets, and catch up on entering my losing tickets in on CA Lottery Replay!
Fun a Day, Day 31
My Final scratcher ticket purchase for January 2012 came from the California Tobacco Center. It was hastily purchased with laundry quarters. Haste causes waste, and I did not win.
Fun A Day, Day 29
Thanks, Hope’s Sports Cards & Stationery Shop, for selling me a ticket that won a free ticket!
Today’s ticket was a “Double Wild 8’s.” I had not seen this one before (and I’ve been scrutinizing racks of $1 scatcher tickets every day for almost a month now!).
The shop is on the hill between upper Polk and Chinatown, and I had always been intrigued and wanted a reason to go inside. Seeing that I don’t really do sports and I tend to make my own stationery, I finally had the perfect reason. Thanks Hope’s!
Fun a Day, Day 28
Today I bought my scratcher ticket at Cable Car Liquor on Clement street in the Richmond. The guy who sold it to me was really, really intense.
Figures that I lost. At least the cow is happy!
Fun a Day, January 27th 2012
Tonight while out for my evening walk, I felt drawn into SF City Market #2. Sitting amongst the other over-played scratcher tickets (crazy hearts, dragons fortune, silver 7s, easy grand— but especially crazy hearts in my case) was this little gem, left over and feeling abandoned after the holidays. I bought one. I was kindly wished good luck by the store guy, and won a free ticket. Yay!
I’ll calculate my total wins and winnings before the month ends– but one thing on my mind is that I am totally sick of the lottery! I’ve been fortunate enough to win a few free tickets, but I’m going to have to come up with a way to enjoyably use them after the month is over (I’m waiting until the end of the month to redeem any winnings). One of my year’s goals is to try to turn this blog into something that happens regularly, and to post more creative stuff, etc. Maybe I could have a feature called “Scratcher Saturdays?”
Fun a day, January 26th!
It’s day 26 and I am getting lazy!!! Today I went to some liquor store around 16th and Guerro and got this loser!! Sigh.
Refer to my January 10th post for details on what this “Fun A Day” business is all about!!
Fun a day – day 25!
I was lazy and again dropped by the Mcallister Market to grab a ticket on my break. They had crazy hearts tickets in abundance, so I of course felt compelled to go with the comfortable choice. I lost.
Coming soon: a post where I actually get adventurous!!
Fun a day — January 24th!
On my break between jobs, I stopped into the McAllister Market and picked up a Crazy Hearts ticket. I won $2!
Fun a day, Day 23!
I again stopped by the Unimart during a a break from work. Along with my purchase of some magically vegan Golden Oreos and a tasty pack of Filipino crackers (an absurdly irresponsible lunch!), I bought an Easy Grand scratcher ticket. I did not win a grand today. Or anything, for that matter. I later soothed my sad soul with a pretty reasonable trip to Out of the Closet (2 shirts for under $3! One will even work as a work shirt!).
January 22 2012 – Fun a Day
I stopped into Fox Liquor and Groceries on my way home from the Farmers Market this morning. I decided to kill my Crazy Hearts losing streak, and purchased a “Silver 7’s” scratcher. It paid off, and I won $2. While there were no sevens about this winning, I think I’ll survive.
Fun a Day, January 21st
This afternoon I wanted to try something new, so I dropped into SF City Market #2 on Larkin Street. Though lottery was not advertised on the outside, I was happy to see that tickets were sold on the inside.
The selection or tickets was, sadly, the same that I have been seeing everywhere else for the entire month– so I decided to continue my recent streak and buy yet another Crazy Hearts. So I did. And that choice sadly continued my losing streak.
Fun-a-Day, Day 20!!
I work right by the gem that is known as Unimart, and I decided to give it a try! I dropped in on my break and picked up yet another Crazy Hearts scratcher ticket. First I scratched off the “prize box” section, and saw that if I lined up 3 hearts, the prize would be $500! I immediately knew that I would not win. I scratched off the rest of the ticket, and was indeed a loser.
So I bought a few “Crazy Hearts” scratchers earlier in the month– and I have been buying Crazy Hearts tickets for the past 3 days. At the beginning of the month, they had relatively low values in the prize box. Now, at the end of the month, the past 3 have had potential values of $100, $100, and $500. I began to wonder– was it a coincidence, or is it planned for potential values to increase as the month goes on?
I decided to do a bit of shoddy research (I have 11 more days to try harder!). I didn’t find an answer, but I did find this interesting project where the blogger bought $100 worth of the same $1 scratcher tickets, and came out $2 richer in the end! I also found this fascinating amount of effort that someone out into a strategy for choosing lotto numbers (pdf file). And this (whoa). And this.I had no clue that people were so into this stuff!
Gamble-A-Day, Day 18!!!
With fewer than 2 weeks left of this project, I stopped into the California Tobacco Center to pick up this evening’s ticket.
I was a mere heart away from winning $100!
Fun a Day, Day 17
The saga continues!
Today I arrived in Oakland a bit early for a dental appointment (totally awesome dentist who actually takes my crappy insurance! She’s worth the BART ride!). To pass the time, I wandered through Chinatown, stopping first into Layonna for some fake meat, and then into Park Grocery Liquors at 828 Franklin Street for a scratcher ticket. The thing about Park Grocery Liquors, is that it’s not really a grocery store. But neither is it a liquor store. Rather, the best that I can describe it, is as a gambling outpost. Upon passing through the doors, I was faced with a dark store interior that was inhabited by maybe 10 elderly men who were furiously gambling with one another and on their owns. Only one joined me at the scratcher machines along the wall– the others filled out those fill-in-the-bubble forms and gambled around a table
The ticket that I purchased– the “Dragon’s Fortune,” did not bring me a fortune. But I’ll live.
Fun a Day, day 16.
I have reached day 16 of my “gamble a day” Fun a Day project, and am still going fairly strong. I have yet to miss a day– but I can say that the daily acquisition of a lottery ticket/scratcher has become a bit of a chore!
Today I purchased a ticket at Van Ness Liquors, and did not win.
It is January 16th. So Far, I have spent $17 on scratcher and lottery tickets (January 5th’s scratcher was fancy and cost $2).
Out of these tickets, I have won $7 and 2 tickets. So really, I have only lost about eight dollars so far.The back of the $1 scratcher tickets proclaim that the average person has a 1 in 4.71 chance of winning any prize at all. I have won a prize on 5 out of 16 days. I’m doing better than I should be!
I will cash in the “wins” at the end of the month.
Fun-a-day, Day 15!
I adore the tackiness of Fisherman’s Wharf, even as a San Francisco resident. So today while I was relishing in the awesomeness of the biggest tourist trap of the city, I stopped into the Alcatraz Mini Market (one of those stores where they try to sell tourists over-priced pipes and beer) to pick up my lottery ticket of the day. The employee was a bit of a grump, and neglected to wish me luck– which I swear is to blame for the fact that I was only a heart away from winning $10!
Oh well! At least the boat museums docked at the Hyde Street Pier had free admission for the holiday!
Fun a day, January 14th 2012!!
I was in the neighborhood so I stopped by 2171 Mission street and picked up the SUPER 7s ticket displayed below. By now I have purchased one scratcher of every design available in the $1 genre. It’s getting a little repetitive, so I think I’m going to slowly shift into more steady purchases of Mega Millions, Superlotto, and Fantasy 5. Tragically, there’s less of a chance of winning with those… but on the chance that I do win, the prize would be even larger than the awesome free ticket that I won today!!
Fun a day, day 13!
Friday the 13th fail!
My Ea$y Grand ticket from the Civic Center Market was unlucky this Friday the 13th!
fun a day 2012– day 12!
Oh my goodness, you would not believe how difficult it is to find a liquor store/smoke shop within a few-block radius of 17th and Mission that actually sells lottery tickets!! I walked in a giant circle, and finally, after inquiring at almost 10 different places, I ended up at the smoke shop at 2171 Mission street (labeled in the image on Google Maps as Pager Town & Smoke Shop), which was less than a block from my starting point.
I went for a Crazy Hearts which had been lucky lately– and tragically lost.
Fun a Day – Day 11
“Triple Cash” = triple fail!!
This ticket was purchased precariously last-minute at the California Tobacco Center. I’d been wanting to change up my place of purchase, but it turns out that practically none of the liquor stores in my urban, lower-income neighborhood seem to sell lottery tickets any more! I’m wondering if there was some kind of a lottery sting….if that even exists.
Either way, the young gent who sold me the ticket was plenty kind and said “good luck, miss” in this creepily genuine voice. Strange, but I’ll take it.
Fun a day, Day 10
As a brief recap for those who are just finding my blog:
For the past few years,I have been participating in Fun-A-day, which is a really fun project where you choose a certain thing to do for every day of January, document it, and then participate in a group art show to share what you did. Last year (as shown earlier on this blog), I modified or sewed a piece of clothing every day. My projects have previously always been artistic. This year, however, I am putting a creepy capitalist spin (that’s also a bit of a psychological experiment on myself): Gamble A Day!
I am a mere third of the way through the month, and my gamble-a-day project has started to feel like it’s in the realm of an addiction or bad relationship or something. I don’t want to buy more lottery tickets, but I have to in order to make everything work out ok!
Luckily, I won again. $3! This gem was purchased amidst a sea of other lottery ticket buyers this evening at the California Tobacco Center.
Coming soon: an analysis of how much I’ve spent and how much I’ve won and lost.
January 9 2012– fun-a-day!
I am crazy for Crazy Hearts!!! This is my second “win” with a ticket of this design. The ticket pictured below won me a lovely $2. It was purchased from Civic Center Market as I hastily rushed from my morning job to my afternoon job.
January 8, 2012 Fun-A-Day
On my walk home from the farmers market this morning, the New Princess Market at the corner of Hyde and Eddy failed me, as I did not win.
I did not even come close.
glitter and dirt-- scraps and dessert 