The difference between romance and love

In this NPR article, a very touching and outstanding story about two people who lived through a cancer diagnosis, until the person with the diagnosis passed away one week after their engagement at the age of 36.

I made the following comment to the person who posted this article on her Facebook page...

My father, when he was first diagnosed with lung cancer back in 2004, would have never known he had it if he didn't break his leg. It was a medium sized tumor, but the damage was done - by September 2005 it had spread to his spine, his brain, and everywhere else. But the greatest thing of it all - he never let anyone feel sorry for him. He still joked about things and kept as lucid as possible until his last days, which were filled with hallucinations, focal seizures, and goodbyes. We even had an Irish wake for him the day before he died.

When you think about it, though, it's a true test of love and friendship to sustain and stick by those in their darkest hours. We may pay the price by losing our loved ones, but we won't count the cost of what we sacrificed to get there. But the memories remain, and that's the real gifts they leave behind.

The difference between love and romance is that we make ourselves attractive for romance, but for love, attractiveness doesn't matter. It's that willingness to show up and support your loved one when they need you the most. That endurance makes a giant difference.

Airing of the Grievances (a tribute to George Carlin)

In the spirit of the late George Carlin and the currently very much alive Jerry Stiller, I present the Airing of the Grievances.

Note to the folks: this entry has R-rated language.

1. People who can't walk a straight line, cut you off when you're trying to get somewhere, and then decide to yap on a cell phone endlessly. The opposite of this are people who stand there like statues. What, is this some kind of fucking game of "Red Light, Green Light?" Keep moving, unless you want to be moved or pushed to the floor.

2. Here's an idea for you neurotic wimps out there who hate smoking, drinking and other vices that are still legal: we don't picket you when you're running around naked with your naughty bits on display. We don't try to force you to sell certain kinds of "organic" produce. And we don't follow around people who we suspect might shoplift, when they're actually looking to eat healthier. $5 for a pound of apples raised in cow shit is a sin.

3. Wall Street. My 401(k) is now a 332.6(k), but it could have been a 201(k). Thanks, Hank and Ben. Please don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

4. Hollywood. Earth to actors and actresses: you not the fucking royalty of America. You get paid millions of dollars to pretend or perform, and yet you think you can pass down your noble royal edicts as gospel? There are actors who do great services the right way - as far away from the red carpet and cameras as possible. There are others who are just attention whores.

While we're at it: can we stop with the bizarre child names? I have two lovely nieces named Hollace and Riley. Those names are fine. My brother and his wife had the smarts not to name them Celery Moonbat Munster Cheese or Cross Bronx Expressway or Lightning Bat Chain Puller. Weird names work for the Zappa folk, although Dweezil is wondering when he can change his name to Dennis.

5. Reality TV. Trollops with fake tans, fake boobs, fake teeth, and the slimy men who adore them, should be put into a cage with hungry wolverines to rid them of their chances of 15 minutes of fame. As for the umpteenth editions of Survivor, Amazing Race, and Big Brother, how about shifting those cameras to the urban centers of our land? God knows a little sunshine is the best disinfectant, and those millions can be used to spruce up quite a few places.

6. Gossip. It's time we got rid of glorifying overpaid brats and sent the paparazzi to Iraq, where instead of getting that great shot of Britney Spears' hoo-hah, they can take pictures of soldiers and others who yearn for the comforts of home and stability. The paparazzi can then understand what it feels like when IEDs and bombs lurk among them and be grateful their last picture wasn't given a posthumous Pulitzer.

7. The press. The newspapers and TV networks are losing money left and right because they've become the public relations board for various lobbies. Somehow they lost their way from reporting the news to acting like tittering high school girls with a crush on the football captain. Time to clean out the queen bees and the goths and get back to reporting, rather than spreading vicious high school gossip.

8. Politics. We still have people in Washington who are so fucking clueless about what the nation really needs! We need people to lay down their ideology - the far left with their Marx worship, and the far right with their God worship - and find out where the hell the happy medium is. It's not gonna happen when you act like some asshat Robin Hood on steroids, or the second coming of Jesus. And it certainly isn't going to happen by telling certain people they can't be poor and certain people they can't be rich. And yes, the sooner term limits to weed out the deadwood and corrupt hacks infesting Capitol Hill is implemented, the better off we'll be.

That's all I can think of for now...

The Real Love Guru - nine years old

Warning to Doctor Phil and the slicksters on VH1: Alec Greven puts you two folks to shame with his direct, wonderfully clear dating book.

Some of his tips from the nine-year-old genius and my comments in red:

"It is easy to spot pretty girls because they have big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewelry...[p]retty girls are like cars that need a lot of oil...The best choice for most boys is a regular girl. Remember, some pretty girls are coldhearted when it comes to boys. Don't let them get to you."

I can attest to that. A lot of the girls who seemed really pretty to me back in the day were sometimes pretty mean-spirited. And the longest-lasting friendships I had came from regular (not as pretty) girls.

And also:

"Crushes are like a love disease. It can drive you mad."

Also very much true. Crushes are like those songs you hear in your ears constantly - you never can seem to stop thinking about them. The girls I had serious crushes on were extremely flattered to be the object of my admiration/adoration, but I was more afraid of the boyfriends - I still have all my teeth! I could also never look them in the eye or hold a coherent conversation with them - I was so nervous I would slip up.

The true love you obtain will rarely be a crush you've had. It will be someone you'll feel comfortable and proud to share your day with.

and the best advice of all...

"Girls always like the smartest boys."

AMEN TO THAT! Back in the '80s, smart boys (back then called "nerds") were as popular as a nuclear power plant. The flip side to that was that the smartest boys, most often then not, had a lot of the answers, and actually listened to the girl's questions and concerns rather than giving a cursory "I don't know." Girls, once they knew they had a credible and reliable source, became fans of the smart boys for life, even though on the surface they seemed to despise them. So what if they dated the football captain or the baseball star, or their friends thought the smart boy was uncool to be even seen with. To a girl, the smart boy was a revered God.

Want more money to go to the state? Decrease the winning odds

I've been doing research on this for the past couple of years, and I've noticed that the lottery's payout on instant games is no less than 67%, after administration and overhead. To wit...

- A $1 ticket has an average payout of 68-70%.
- A $2 ticket has an average payout of 69-73%.
- A $5 ticket has an average payout of 75-78%.
- A $10 ticket has an average payout of 80-83%.
- A $20 ticket has an average payout of 82-85%.

Other lotteries are far less generous with their prizes, around 60% maximum, but with an average of around 55% or so. What would happen if Massachusetts, in light of its fiscal crisis, decided to cut its prize payout structure?

The way you can do that is to keep the current amount of low-tier prizes ($10 or less) as is, but make the higher tier prizes ($20 or more) harder to get. To do so, you cut the amount of higher tickets.

For example, the Holiday Bucks payout of 71.82%, which is the total amount paid out in prizes ($10,859,400) divided by the total number of tickets (15,120,000) sold at $1 apiece, depends on the following prize structure for prizes $20 and over...

$5,000 prize x 60 tickets = $300,000 in the $5,000 "pool"
$100 prize x 13650 tickets = $1,365,000 in the $100 "pool"
$40 prize x 18900 tickets = $756,000 in the $40 "pool"
$20 prize x 54000 tickets = $1,080,000 in the $20 "pool"

Say the lottery changes the prize pools to this...

$5,000 x 30 prizes = $150,000
$100 x 1512 = $151,200
$40 x 3024 = $120,960
$20 x 30240 = $604,800

We've saved $150,000 in the $5,000 pool, $1,213,800 in the $100 pool, $635,040 in the $40 pool, and $475,000 in the $20 pool, for a total savings of $2,473,840, making the effective payout $7,881,360, or 52.13%.

This nearly $2.5 million is quite a neat bundle of savings, and this is just for the $1 tickets! If the lottery cut its payouts to 55% across all tickets, it would bring in a lot of revenue for the state, and it would certainly avoid toll hikes, gas tax hikes, and property tax hikes - and maybe leave a little to bring down the income tax to 5%.

On the other hand, critics will give the guilt-wracked spiel about the "those who can least afford it" filling in the budget gap, saying so super-expensive condos, while cooking super-exclusive food, and entertaining their super-shallow friends. Maybe they should downsize to the levels of "the people who can least afford it" and see how it feels for once - starting with their charmed luxury lifestyles. While they're at it, they can dig deeper than their conceit and contempt for those who don't have six figure salaries and a trophy spouse.