Very quiet on the board today. I’m surprised

Very quiet on the board today.

I’m surprised by it, but I suppose there’s only so much to talk about.

Since there’s nothing else going on I thought I’d share with you an idea to annoy any CYDY longs in your life. Assuming they pay as close attention as the rest of us do, that is. Here’s what you do.

First, remember that for a couple years straight we’d often get press releases at 6am eastern. It’s conditioned us to expect an email alert within minutes of 6am. Second, it’s not uncommon to get a PR right after the bell. Not necessarily CYDY, but in general you’ll get a lot of 4:02pm eastern emails about tickers you follow.

Now all you have to do is find a reason to send an email to a long at 6:02am or 4:02pm. It could be an email about nothing in particular or maybe you wait to like a post of theirs until precisely 6am or 4pm so iHang sends them an email alert a minute later. Their phone beeps and their brain tells them it could be CYDY.

I know this will work because my adrenaline spikes a tiny bit any time I get an email around those times. Even if you go back and see that many press releases started coming at less consistent times over the last 6 months, it’s ingrained at this point and I can’t do anything about it.

It’s worse if you’re like me because I have two phones. One for business and one for porn. Since I have my personal email set up on both I get almost simultaneous email alerts. This tells me it isn’t a business email, which would be just one alert, and blood starts rushing to all the important areas as I whisper “big money, no whammies” and open my email for news. Only it isn’t news. It’s just Harpitdown liking my latest post. Eeeaaasy big fella, I whisper, as I pull my pants back on and try to act like I wasn’t 100% certain I was hitting the lottery four seconds earlier.

Speaking of hitting the lottery…

Back in the early 2000’s I was living in Michigan and had just started dating a very attractive woman I’d met while doing drunken karaoke. I was only there because my buddy’s bowling league through work needed an extra player for the night. We’d won, or lost, I don’t remember. But next door was a bar and we moved the party there. After plenty of liquid courage I asked this cute girl to sing the duet from Grease with me. She agreed and afterward I asked her out. She wasn’t dolled up this night, but when I saw her the next night for our date I realized she was even more attractive than I’d remembered. It went well.

Over the next month or two we got after it, if you know what I’m talking about. Along the way I learned she had two kids by two different dudes. I learned this shortly before finding out she lived in what would be best described as a new trailer home community. I wouldn’t normally care about material type things, but this is during the heyday of Jerry Springer and as I was learning these things I had an ongoing internal battle over whether I should be an adult about things and give her a chance, or bail immediately before we ended up on a Maury episode about who is or isn’t the father. But the problem was she was great in just about all other ways, including knockin’ boots (medical term). So I kept seeing her while I debated what to do.

At one point one of her baby daddies called me on my cell and started threatening me. I had no idea who he was and why he was threatening me until he said he used to see the girl I was casually dating. I guess she’d written my info down and he somehow got into her car and found it. Once I realized who he was and I said something like, “dude, you seem to have some deep-rooted issues with this girl I’ve hung out with a handful of times. I don’t understand why the fuck you’re calling me.” He backed off and suddenly became my best friend. “You sound like a cool dude, I’m just trying to warn you that she’s not a good person.”

Okay, thanks for letting me know in the creepiest way possible.

At this point I’m getting very close to hitting the eject button but was probably going to have another sleepover or two before breaking the news because I’m classy.

While I’m kicking around how and when to break the news the mega millions jackpot, or maybe it was just called the Big Game back then, had gotten to something crazy like $350 million for the first time. Everyone had a ticket. The next day I find out a winning ticket was sold in Michigan when the girl calls me, freaking out because the store she bought her ticket at was the place that sold it. And she can’t find her ticket.

Shit, I think. I’m gonna have to marry this girl.

Eventually they figured out it was some older dude who walked in for a hot dog and some tickets. He bought his hot dog with a hundo and asked for the rest in tickets. She hadn’t won after all. Which made it way easier to finally end things with her. After a few more sleepovers, of course. #Classy

And that, my invisible internet friends, is the story about the time I almost won the lottery.

Hopefully soon I’ll win the CYDY lottery, which isn’t so much a lottery as it is a very long roller coaster that keeps getting stalled upside down on the track. But there’s money at the end of the ride, of that I’m sure. Lottery-like money, if you had the forethought to get in while it was cheap. Or while it was expensive and then later when it was cheap again. Like right now, when we’re hanging upside down yet again, waiting for some news that we’re going to be moving forward again.