I guess I shouldn't have run my mouth

This is me. Its 9:17 am and as you can see, I am not very happy. I have been forced by the powers that be to go to a lottery house. Why?

Because Celesc, our electric company, has nothing better to do than to make us try to figure out each month where we can pay our phone bills.

Normally you pay your bills in a bank. Most of the time you can set them up for automatic deposit. But not in Balneário Camboriú. Each month is a cat and mouse game trying to figure out where you can pay your bill.

Some months you can pay at your bank. Most of the time you can pay at your local grocery store, except for right now, with over a half a million tourists in the city, they've decided that the only place they will allow you to give them money is at a lottery station.

Thankfully I had my Treo in my pocket and was able to take this shot of my view from the end of the line. I counted 17 people ahead of me, all with dreams of hitting the number and making it rich.


To be fair, about half of these people were in the same situation as me. Poor slobs just wanting to make sure their lights stay on, but almost every one took advantage of the situation and decided to play.

Finally, at 9:36 I hold the fruit of my fruitless labor in my hands. My reciept for $277.05 reias (about US$130). The line moved faster than I expected but it was still frustrating.

And I didn't play the lotto. If it had been Powerball I probably would have but the Mega Sena pot is still too small to get me excited enough to play. Plus I keep thinking about that fool and his money thing.