Day: April 2, 2014

It’s not shameful to admit that alligators can be worrisome enemies. Deceptively speedy, they have a bite that is terrifying at best and fatal at worst. They’re extremely territorial, and that death roll of theirs is dynamite, just like a killer bunny. Normal people should avoid them.

Now, we’re not saying that we should give ground to them. Far from it. In fact, an older woman in Florida may be slowly winning the war. Residents in a neighborhood have caught her feeding an alligator. This is a regrettable act. We truly should be starving them, as that’s an effective way to win the war. Luckily, they’ve also caught her yelling at the alligator. We approve of that tactic. By demoralizing the troops, we can slowly but surely put a hatchet in the war.

We can also put a hatchet in the war by putting a hatchet into the heads of our enemies. Just throwing that out there.

Look, media. We get it: lottery stories are pretty much worthless unless you won, so you need to find some angle that lets everyone know they lost while still entertaining them.

It is not, however, an interesting angle that a Star Wars fan won the lottery.

To put this in perspective:

 

• The odds of winning the jackpot in Powerball are one in 175,223,510.
• The odds of dying in a terrorist attack are one in 20,000,000, which is still lower than the chances of dying any other way, including by a bolt of lightning (one in 10,495,684).
• The first Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope, has earned $775,398,007 since its release in 1977, and was even nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award — something that rarely happens for what you’re implying is a nerdy, limited appeal sci-fi film. (That dollar amount doesn’t even begin to factor in amounts earned from merchandising, sequels and tie-ins.)

 

Basically, the odds indicate that Ray Buxton — being a living American white male — was more likely to hit the jackpot than to not be a Star Wars fan. Or if the odds of anyone winning the Powerball jackpot are one in 175,223,510, then the odds of a Star Wars fan winning it are one in 175,223,508.

But, hey, nerds, amiright?