you gotta know when to hold 'em...
There are few things that are more depressing to me than to see an elderly lady or gentleman sitting at a slot machine repeatedly pressing a button over and over and over again. I don't know their situation, how much money they have or how often they come and play, but I do know that there are so many better things to be doing with money than giving it to a casino...

Sometimes I wonder if it's one of the last "thrills" they can have. It's a rare elderly person who can capture a physical thrill, such as skydiving, cliff jumping, parasailing, etc. Or, since most of their life is behind them, they think that this gives them license to risk it all -- a "devil may care" attitude about life. I'm sure many just hope they hit it big and win lots of money as well.

The whole casino is a portrait of man's lust for easy money, which is ironic as the only easy money doled out is to the casino itself.

Now, that's not to say that I think all gambling is bad and that you should never do it. Chris & I went to Las Vegas a few years ago (he had a work conference and I tagged along) and we had a good time there looking at the extravagance and yes, even gambling a little bit of money. We had some set aside to use as entertainment expense, about the same amount we would have spent on dinner and a movie and Chris played a little blackjack and won some money.

I don't play because I know that this is an area of weakness for me (I love playing games and I'm a little bit too competitive) and I can see myself very easily blowing a lot of money very quickly. We were ready to lose that money and could afford to at that time as we were DINK's (dual income, no kids). I didn't gamble at all this weekend (well, my mom gave me some money and I promptly lost it all at video poker) because we don't have any money that we can afford to lose!

Side note: I was in Michigan City with my Mom, sister-in-law, aunt & cousin this weekend for a girl's weekend out and we stayed at a casino/hotel (not my choice). I came away smelling like an ashtray. Yuck.

ACT
Chris and I are tutoring some guys in our church on Sunday nights for the ACT in December. We took the English & math practice tests last week. It wasn't pretty for either of us. As is his nature, Chris didn't finish the test and as is my nature, I did, but got more wrong of the ones that I filled out than he did. We are going to take the science portion this week and that's going to be ugly too, at least from my end!

I really feel for our guys -- I would not want to take this test again and understand when they say that they are really discouraged by it. I'm not a good standardized test taker, generally. I'm not sure what it is about them, but they intimidate me and I second guess myself constantly -- I would change an answer and my original would be the right one. But, we're really trying to encourage them to persevere and offer as much help as we can...