Masslottery.com

I remember always being able to cash in lottery tickets at convenience stores that sold them
But the MA lottery website (https://www.masslottery.com/about/claim_a_prize/2020_prize_claim) seems to indicate the only way to claim a prize is by mail.
Does anyone have recent experience with this?
(I have 2 tickets with $15 and $5 on them. I got them as a Xmas present. I don't own a printer. I'd rather not spend 1/36 of my winnings on a stamp.)

BY MABEL COLLINS. THE IDYLL OF THE WHITE LOTUS. BOOK II. CHAPTER V. I WAS no longer in the sanctuary. I felt the air on my face. I opened my eyes and saw the sky above me, and the shin- ing stars in its depth. I was lying prostrate, and I felt strangely weary. Yet I was roused by the sound of a thousand voices, whose cries and songs struck on my ears. What could this be? I raised myself. I was in the midst of the circle of priests, of the ten high priests. Agmahd stood beside me; he was watching me. My eyes fixed on his face, and I could not look away. Pitiless, heartless, soulless! Had I feared him? This image, this inhuman being? I feared him no longer. I looked round at the priests who sur- rounded me. I read their faces; they were absorbed, self- conscious. Each and all were bitten and eaten by one deep desire, one hunger for gratification, which he cherished like a serpent, next his heart. I could no longer fear these men. I had seen the light. I was strong. I rose to my feet. I looked round at the multitudes who crowded the banks of the river, beneath the clear sky. I understood then the strange voices I had heard. The people were mad; some with wine, some with love, some with absolute frenzy. Numbers of small boats had crowded the water; the people had come in these to make offerings to the goddess whom they adored, and whom to-night they had seen, and heard, and felt. The sacred boat on which I stood was weighted and heaped with the offerings the people had flung into it, standing up in their low vessels, their rafts, by the side of ours. Gold and silver, jewels, and vessels of gold set with shining stones. Agmahd looked at these things, and I saw the smile on his lips. These riches might feed the temple, but for himself it was very different jewels he desired and worked for. My soul spoke suddenly un- awares. I could look on and be silent no longer. I spoke in a loud voice, and commanded the people to hear me, and immediately there was a stillness which grew till it spread over the multitude. "Listen to me, you that are worshippers here of the goddess. What goddess is it you worship? Can you not tell by the words she whispers into your hearts? Look within, and if she has seared you with the fierce heat of pas- sion, know she is no true god! For there is no truth save in wisdom. Listen, and I will speak to you words that have been uttered in the sanctuary, and breathed by the spirit of light, our Queen Mother. Know that in virtue, in true thoughts, in true deeds, only can you find peace. Is this dark orgie a fit surrounding for the goddess of truth? Are you her worshippers, who are drunk with wine and passion here beneath the open sky? You with wild words of impiety and frenzied songs on your lips, and thoughts of shame at your hearts, ready to spring boldly into deeds? No! down on your knees, and lift your hands to heaven, and ask that beneficent spirit, our Queen of wisdom, who broods over you with wide wings of love, to forgive your shamelessness, to help you in a new effort. Hear me. I will pray to her for I see her in her splendour. Speak to her in the words I utter, and she shall surely listen, for she loves you even though you offend————" A burst of melody, a number of strong voices singing, drowned my voice. The priests had burst into song with the rich music of a hymn. The people, swayed by my voice and words, had in masses fallen upon their knees. Now, intoxicated by the music, they sang the hymn with fervour, and the volume of sound rose majestically into the sky. A strong sweet scent entered my nostrils. I turned from it with dislike, but already it had done its work. I felt my brain swoon. "He is in an ecstasy," said Kamen Baka. "He is mad," I heard uttered in another voice——a voice so cold, so enraged, I hardly recognised it. Yet I knew it was Agmahd who spoke. I strove to answer him, for I was inspired in all I did by a new and strange courage, and I knew nothing of fear. But already the stupefying vapour had done its work. I was dumb, as in sleep; my head grew heavy. In a few seconds I was asleep. CHAPTER VI. WHEN I awoke I was in my old chamber in the temple; the one in which my first boyish terrors came to me. I was very tired; so tired that the first sensation I ex- perienced was that of intolerable weariness, which numbed all my body. I lay still a little while, thinking only of my discomfort. Then suddenly the events of yesterday came into my memory. It was like the rising of the sun. I had found her again, my Queen Mother, and she had taken me back to her protection. I rose, forgetting my pain and weariness. It was just dawn, and through the high window the faint grey light came softly into my room. It was brilliant with rich material and rich embroidery; full of strange and beautiful things which made it seem like a chamber for a prince. But for its peculiar shape and the high window, it could hardly have been recognised as the room in which my childhood had been made a garden of flowers for my pleasure. The air within seemed to me heavy and dull; I longed to be outside, in the air sweet with the newness of morning; for I felt that I too needed to be new-made and strong with the strength of youth. And here the perfumed atmosphere, the heavy draperies and weight of luxury, oppressed me. I lifted the curtain and crossed the great room which was next mine. It was empty and silent; so was the wide corridor. I went softly on through the long corridors, till I reached that in which the gate opened to the garden. Through the iron grating I could see the gleam of the grass as I approached it. Ah, that beautiful garden! Oh, to bathe in sweet water of the lily tank! But the iron door was fast locked; I could but look through at the grass and sky and flowers, and drink the fresh air in through the narrow openings. Suddenly I saw Seboua approaching down one of the garden walks. He came straight to the iron door within which I stood. "Seboua!" I cried. "Ah, thou art here," he said, speaking in his rough tones. "The man and the child are alike. But no longer may Seboua be thy friend. I have failed, and I may not try again. I angered both my masters when you were a child; I could not hold you fast for either. Be it so; you must now stand alone." "Can you not open the gate?" was all my answer. "No," he said; "and I doubt if it will ever be opened for thee again. What matters it? Art thou not the favourite priest of the temple, the darling, the cherished one?" "No," I answered, "I am that no longer. They already say I am mad. They will say it again to-day." Seboua looked at me earnestly. "They will kill you!" he said in a low voice full of tenderness and pity. "They cannot," I answered, smiling. "My Queen will protect me. I must live till I have spoken all she wishes. Then, I care not." Seboua raised his hand from where it had remained hidden in the folds of his black dress. He held in it a bud of the lotus flower that lay in a green leaf which seemed its bed. "Take it," he said. "It is for thee; it speaks a language that thou wilt understand. Take it, and may good go with thee. I that am dumb, save in common speech, yet am worthy to be a messenger. That makes me glad. But thou mayest rejoice, for thou canst hear and speak, learn and teach." Immediately he was gone; while he had been speaking he had pushed the flower to me through one of the narrow openings of the grating. I drew it towards me carefully. I held it now in my hands; I was content. I needed nothing else. I went back to my room and sat down, holding the flower in my hand. It was the same thing over again as when I had, long ago, a mere child, sat in this same chamber holding a lily and gazing into its centre. I had a friend, a guide; a union with that unseen Mother of grace. But now I knew the value of what I held; then I did not. Was it possible that it would be again taken from me so easily? Surely no. For I could understand its language now. Then it spoke to me of nothing save its own beauty; now it opened my eyes, and I saw; it unsealed my ears, and I heard. A circle was round me; such as had surrounded me when I had taught, unknowingly, in the temple. These were priests, white-robed, as those had been who knelt and worshipped me. But these did not kneel; they stood and gazed down upon me with profound eyes of pity and love. Some were old men, stately and strong; some were young and slender, with faces of fresh light. I looked round in awe, and trembled with hope and joy. I knew, without any words to tell me, what brotherhood this was. These were my predecessors, the priests of the sanctuary, the seers, the chosen servants of the Lily Queen. I saw that they had succeeded each to each, keeping sacredly the guardianship of the holy of holies since first it was shaped out of the great rock, against which the temple rested. "Art thou ready to learn?" said one to me——one whose breath seemed to me to be drawn from long-forgotten ages. "I am ready," I said; and knelt upon the ground in the centre of that strange, holy circle. My body fell, yet my spirit seemed to soar. Though I knelt, I knew I was held up in soul by those who surrounded me. Henceforth they were my brethren. "Sit thou there," he said, pointing to my couch, "and I will talk with thee." I rose, and turning to go to the couch, saw that I was alone with this one who spoke to me. The others had left us. He came and sat beside me, and began to speak. He poured into my heart the wisdom of the dead ages; wisdom which lives for ever, and is young when the race of its early disciples is no longer even a memory. My heart grew green with the freshness of this ancient knowledge and truth. Throughout that day he sat beside me and taught. At night he touched my forehead with his hands and left me. As I lay down to sleep, I recollected that I had seen none but my teacher since yesterday, nor had I tasted food. Yet I was not weary with learning, nor was I faint. I laid my flower beside me, and slept quietly. When I awoke, I started up, fancying some one touched my flower. But I was alone, and my flower was safe. A table stood near the heavy curtain which separated my room from the next; on this table stood food; milk and cakes. All yesterday I had not eaten: I was glad now of the food. I put my flower within my dress, and went to the table. I drank the milk and ate the cakes; and then, with new strength in me, I turned to go to my couch, and there meditate earnestly on what I had learned yesterday, for I knew that these were golden seeds which must bear fruits of glory. But I stood and my heart sang within me; for again I was surrounded by the beautiful circle. He who had taught me yesterday, looked at me and smiled, but he did not speak. Another approached me, took my hand and led me to the couch, and I was alone with him. Alone, yet not alone, and never to be any longer alone. He took my heart and soul, and showed them to me in their nakedness, unsoftened by any fancied sanctity. He took my past, and showed it to me in its simple, dark, unbeautiful poverty; that past which might have been so rich. Until now, it seemed to me I had been living in unconsciousness. Now, I was guided through my own life again, and bidden regard it with clear vision. The chambers I passed through were dark and dreary; some of them were full of horrors. For now I saw that I had been won by the magic which I myself had interpreted to Kamen Baka. Like the others, I had existed for desire and its satisfaction. And steeped in the joys of pleasure, of beauty, I had been as one intoxicated, and knew not all that I did. Remembering my past, I saw the meaning of Seboua's words, which at the time I hardly understood. I had indeed been the darling of the temple, for when my body was steeped in pleasure, and silenced in the dim sleep of satiety, my lips and voice had become docile to the will of that dark mistress. Through my physical powers she made known her wishes, and obtained the services of those slaves who had bartered their all for the sake of gratification. By her fierce and terrible insight into the dark caverns of men's souls, she saw their needs, and with my speech she showed the how to obtain that which they longed for. As I sat there, dumb and amazed at the visions which passed through my awakened memory, I saw myself first, a mere child, lulled from terror and alarm by pleasure. I saw myself within the temple, in its inner sanctuary, a creature helpless, a tool, a mere instrument played upon mercilessly. I saw myself later, a youth fresh and beautiful, lying unconscious on the deck of the sacred boat, rising in the frenzy of unconsciousness, and uttering strange words. I saw myself later, grown pale and faint, yet always the willing instrument, although the soul was beginning to stir and weary the body with its struggle; and now I saw that the soul had awakened, had touched its mother, the queen of light, and could never again be silenced. The night came, and my teacher left me. None else had come to my chamber; no food had been brought to me since the early morning. I was faint with the terrible sights which I had seen in this short day. I determined to go in search of the food I needed. I lifted the heavy curtain that covered the archway, which led into the great room beyond. A door was there——a massive door——such as might close the portal of a dungeon. Then I understood I was a prisoner, and now that I had recovered from my weakness and excitement, I was to have no food. Agmahd had seen that my spirit had awakened; he had determined to kill it within me, and preserve the mere broken body for his purpose. I lay down upon my couch, and fell asleep with the drooping lily bud upon my lips. When I awoke, one stood beside me whom I knew to be my new teacher. I had met his smile when I had seen the beautiful circle around me. I sprang up gladly; from him I looked for encouragement. He came and sat beside me, and took my hand in his. And then I knew that his smile was the light of a great peace. He had died in this chamber——died for the truth. He called me brother, and suddenly I became aware that the roses of my life had blown and fallen, and passed away for ever. I had to live for the truth in the light of the pure spirit, and no suffering must make me afraid, and from the moment that his hand touched mine, I knew that no suffering could make me afraid. Until now, pain had always blinded me with terror, but now I knew that I could meet and grasp it with strong hands unterrified. I sank to sleep that night in an ecstasy; I knew not whether I waked or dreamed; but I knew that this my brother, whose physical life had been torn from him in the long ages past, had poured the strength of his fiery soul into mine, and that I could never lose it again. CHAPTER VII. ON the morrow when my eyes opened my bed was sur- rounded by the beautiful ones. They regarded me with grave looks; I saw no smile on any face; but the infinite tenderness which I felt from them gave me strength. I rose and knelt beside my couch, for I saw that some great moment was approaching. The youngest and the brightest of them all left the circle and approached me. He knelt beside me and clasped my hands, holding within them the faded lotus blossom which had lain upon my pillow. I looked round——the others were gone. I regarded my companion. He was silent; his eyes were fixed on me. How young he was and beautiful! Earth had left no soil on his spirit. I knew that its stain must be on mine until in the course of ages I had washed it clean again. I felt a fear of this my companion, he was so white and spotless. "Look not up yet," he whispered. As we remained thus in silence a soft voice fell on my ear. "Twin stars of the evening, thou the last of the long line of seers who have made the wisdom of the temple and crowned the greatness of Egypt with glory! The night is at hand, and the darkness must fall and hide the earth from the beauty of the heavens above it. Yet the truth shall be left with my people, the ignorant children of earth. And it is for you to leave behind you a burning light, a record for all time which men shall look at and wonder at in ages hence. The record of your lives, and of the truth which inspired you, shall go to other races, in other parts of the dim earth, to a people who have only heard of the light, who have never seen it. Be strong, for your work is great. Thou, my child of the snowy soul, thou hadst not strength to battle alone with the growing darkness; but now, give of thy faith and purity to this one, whose wings are smirched with stains of the earth, but who has gathered from that dark contact strength for the coming battle. Fight thou to the last for thy Queen Mother. Speak to my people, and tell them of the great truths; tell them that the soul lives and is blessed, unless they drown it in degrada- tion; tell them there is freedom and peace for all who will free themselves from desire; tell them to look to me and find rest in my love; tell them there is the lotus bloom in every human soul, and that it will open wide to the light unless they poison its roots; tell them to live in innocence and seek after truth, and I will come and walk in their midst, and show them the way into that place of peace where all is beauty and all are content. Tell them I love my children, and would come and dwell in their homes and bring that content which is more than any prosperity, even unto these their hearths of the earth. Tell them this in a voice like a trumpet-call, which cannot be misunderstood. Save those who will hear, and make my temple once more a dwelling for the Spirit of Truth. The temple must fall, but it shall not fall in iniquity. Egypt must decay, but it shall not decay in ignorance. It shall hear a voice it cannot forget; and the words which that voice utters shall be the hidden heirloom of ages, and shall again be spoken under another sky, and herald the dawn which must break through the long blackness. Thou, my youngest, thou who art both strong and weak, prepare! The struggle is at hand; do not flinch. One duty is thine; to teach the people. Do not fear that wisdom shall fail thy tongue. I, who am Wisdom, will speak in thy voice. I, who am Wisdom, will be at thy side. Look up, my child, and gather strength." I raised my eyes, and as I did so felt the tightening grasp of the hand of my companion, who knelt at my side. I understood that he desired to give me courage to face the blinding glory which was before my eyes. She stood before us, and I saw her as the flower sees the sun which feeds it. I saw her without disguise or veil. The fair woman who had soothed my boyish tears was lost in the god, the glory of whose presence filled my soul with a burning that seemed to me like death. Yet I lived; I saw; I understood. 

THE IDYLL OF THE WHITE LOTUS, BY MABEL COLLINS. Theosophical Publishing Society, 26 Charing Cross, S.W. ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1896. pp. 106-119.
[•] [•] [•] [•] [•] [•] [•] [•]
Thomas Becket (i.) (ii.) The Feudal System (i.) (ii.) The Crusades (i.) (ii.) William of Wykeham (i.) (ii.) John Wyclif (i.) (ii.) Dante (i.) (ii.) Geoffrey Chaucer (i.) (ii.) Christopher Columbus (i.) (ii.) Savonarola (i.) (ii.) Michael Angelo (i.) (ii.) Martin Luther (i.) (ii.) Thomas Cranmer (i.) (ii.) Ignatius Loyola (i.) (ii.) John Calvin (i.) (ii.) Francis Bacon (i.) (ii.) Galileo (i.) (ii.) Héloïse (i.) (ii.) Joan of Arc (i.) (ii.) Saint Theresa (i.) (ii.) Madame de Maintenon (i.) (ii.) Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (i.) (ii.) Madame Récamier (i.) (ii.) Madame de Staël (i.) (ii.) Hannah More (i.) (ii.) George Eliot (i.) (ii.) Alfred the Great (i.) (ii.) Queen Elizabeth (i.) (ii.) Henry of Navarre (i.) (ii.) Gustavus Adolphus (i.) (ii.) Cardinal de Richelieu (i.) (ii.) Oliver Cromwell (i.) (ii.) Louis XIV. (i.) (ii.) Louis XV. (i.) (ii.) Peter the Great (i.) (ii.) Frederic the Great (i.) (ii.) David Lloyd George (i.) (ii.) Theodore Roosevelt (i.) (ii.) Ferdinand Foch (i.) (ii.)

By Douglas Adams Life, The Universe and Everything Chapter 13 Two months later, Zipo Bibrok 5x10^8 had cut the bottoms off his Galactic State jeans and was spending part of the enormous fee his judgments commanded lying on a jeweled beach having Es- sence of Qualactin rubbed into his back by the same rather nice member of the jury. She was a Soolfinian girl from beyond the Cloudworlds of Yaga. She had skin like lemon silk and was very interested in legal bodies. "Did you hear the news?" she said. "Weeeeelaaaaah!" said Zipo Bibrok 5x10^8, and you would have had to have been there to know exactly why he said this. None of this was on the tape of Informational Illusions and is all based on hearsay. "No," he added, when the thing that had made him say "Weeeeelaaaaah" had stopped happening. He moved his body around slightly to catch the first rays of the third and greatest of primeval Vod's three suns that was creeping over the ludicrously beautiful horizon, and the sky now glittered with some of the greatest tanning power ever known. A fragrant breeze wandered up from the quiet sea, trailed along the beach and drifted back to sea again, wondering where to go next. On a mad impulse it went up to the beach again. It drifted back to sea. "I hope it isn't good news," muttered Zipo Bibrok 5x10^8, "'cos I don't think I could bear it." "Your Krikkit judgment was carried out today," said the girl sumptuously. There was no need to say such a straightforward thing sumptuously, but she went ahead and did it anyway because it was that sort of day. "I heard it on the radio," she said, "when I went back to the ship for the oil." "Uh-huh," murmured Zipo and rested his head back on the jeweled sand. "Something happened," she said. "Mmmm?" "Just after the Slo-Time envelope was locked," she said, and paused a moment from rubbing in the Essence of Qualactin, "a Krikkit warship that had been missing, presumed destroyed, turned out to be just missing after all. It appeared and tried to seize the Key." Zipo sat up sharply. "Hey, what?" he said. "It's all right," she said in a voice that would have calmed the Big Bang down, "apparently there was a short battle. The Key and the warship were disintegrated and blasted into the space-time continuum. Apparently they are lost forever." She smiled, and squeezed a little more Essence of Qualactin onto her fingertips. He relaxed and lay back down. "Do what you did a moment or two ago," he murmured. "That?" she said. "No, no," he said, "that." She tried again. "That?" she asked. "Weeeeelaaaaaah!" Again, you had to be there. The fragrant breeze drifted up from the sea again. A magician wandered along the beach, but no one needed him. Chapter 14 "Nothing is lost forever," said Slartibartfast, his face flickering redly in the light of the candle that the robot waiter was trying to take away, "except for the Cathedral of Chalesm." "The what?" said Arthur with a start. "The Cathedral of Chalesm," repeated Slartibartfast. "It was during the course of my researches at the Campaign for Real Time that I . . ." "The what?" said Arthur again. The old man paused and gathered his thoughts, for what he hoped would be one last onslaught on this story. The robot waiter moved through the space-time matrices in a way that spectacularly combined the surly with the obsequious, made a snatch for the candle and got it. They had the check, and argued convincingly about who had the cannelloni and how many bottles of wine they had had, and, as Arthur had been dimly aware, had thereby suc- cessfully maneuvered the ship out of subjective space and into parking orbit round a strange planet. The waiter was now anxious to complete his part of the charade and clear the bistro. "All will become clear," said Slartibartfast. "When?" "In a minute. Listen. The time streams are now very polluted. There's a lot of muck floating about in them, flotsam and jetsam, and more and more of it is now being regurgitated into the physi- cal world. Eddies in the space-time continuum, you see." "So I hear," said Arthur. "Look, where are we going?" said Ford, pushing his chair back from the table with impatience, "because I'm eager to get there." "We are going," said Slartibartfast, in a slow, measured voice, "to try to prevent the war robots of Krikkit from regaining the whole of the Key they need to unlock the planet of Krikkit from the Slo-Time envelope and release the rest of their army and their mad Masters." "It's just," said Ford, "that you mentioned a party." "I did," said Slartibartfast, and hung his head. He realized that it had been a mistake, because the idea seemed to exercise a strange and unhealthy fascination on the mind of Ford Prefect. The more Slartibartfast unraveled the dark and tragic story of Krlkkit and its people, the more Ford Prefect wanted to drink a lot and dance with girls. The old man felt that he should not have mentioned the party until he absolutely had to. But there it was, the fact was out, and Ford Prefect had attached himself to it the way an Arcturan Meg- aleech attaches itself to its victim before biting his head off and making off with his spaceship. "When," said Ford eagerly, "do we get there?" "When I've finished telling you why we have to go there." "I know why I'm going," said Ford, and leaned back, sticking his hands behind his head. He did one of his smiles that made people twitch. Slartibartfast had hoped for an easy retirement. He had been planning to learn to play the octaventral heebie- phone, a pleasantly futile task, he knew, because he had the wrong number of mouths. He had also been planning to write an eccentric and relentlessly inaccurate monograph on the subject of the equatorial fjords in order to set the record wrong about one or two matters he saw as impor- tant. Instead, he had somehow got talked into doing some part-time work for the Campaign for Real Time and had started to take it all seriously for the first time in his life. As a result he now found himself spending his fast declining years combating evil and trying to save the Galaxy. He found it exhausting work and sighed heavily. "Listen," he said, "at Camtim . . ." "What?" said Arthur. "The Campaign for Real Time, which I will tell you about later. I noticed that five pieces of jetsam that had in relatively re- cent times plopped back into existence seemed to correspond to the five pieces of the missing Key. Only two I could trace exactly—— the Wooden Pillar, which appeared on your planet, and the Silver Bail. It seemed to be at some sort of party. We must go there to re- trieve it before the Krikkit robots find it, or who knows what may happen." "No," said Ford firmly, "we must go to the party in order to drink a lot and dance with girls." "But you haven't understood everything I . . ." "Yes," said Ford, with sudden and unexpected fierceness, "I've understood it all perfectly well. That's why I want to have as many drinks and dance with as many girls as possible while there are still any left. If everything you've shown us is true . . ." "True? Of course it's true." '. . . then we don't stand a whelk's chance in a supernova." "A what?" said Arthur sharply again. He had been following the conversation doggedly up to this point, and was keen not to lose the thread now. "A whelk's chance in a supernova," repeated Ford without los- ing momentum, "the . . ." "What's a whelk got to do with a supernova?" said Arthur. "It doesn't," said Ford levelly, "stand a chance in one." He paused to see if the matter was now cleared up. The freshly puzzled looks clambering across Arthur's face told him that it wasn't. "A supernovas," said Ford as quickly and as clearly as he could, "is a star that explodes at almost half the speed of light and burns with the brightness of billion suns and then collapses and as a super- heavy neutron star. It's a star that burn up other stars, got it? Nothing stands a chance in a supernova." "I see," said Arthur. "The . . ." "So why a whelk particularly?" "Why not a whelk? Doesn't matter." Arthur accepted this, and Ford continued, picking up his early fierce momentum as best he could. "The point is," he said, "that people like you and me, Slarti- bartfast, and Arthur——particularly and especially Arthur——are just dilettantes, eccentrics, layabouts if you like." Slartibartfast frowned, partly in puzzlement and partly in um- brage. He started to speak. ". . ." is as far as he got. "We're not obsessed by anything, you see," insisted Ford. ". . ." "And that's the deciding factor. We cant win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win." "I care about a lot of things," said Slartibartfast, his voice trem- bling partly with annoyance, but partly also with uncertainty. "Such as?" "Well," said the old man, "life, the Universe. Everything, re- ally. Fjords." "Would you die for them?" "Fjords?" blinked Slartibartfast in surprise. "No." "Well then." "Wouldn't see the point, to be honest." "And I still can't see the connection," said Arthur, "with whelks." Ford could feel the conversation slipping out of his control, and refused to be sidetracked by anything at this point. "The point is," he hissed, "that we are not obsessive people, and we don't stand a chance against . . ." "Except for your sudden obsession with whelks," pursued Arthur, "which I still haven't understood." "Will you please leave the whelks out of it?" "I will if you will," said Arthur. "You brought the subject up." "It was an error," said Ford, "forget them. The point is this." He leaned forward and rested his forehead on the tips of his fingers. "What was I talking about?" he said wearily. "Let's just go down to the party," said Slartibartfast, "for what- ever reason." He stood up, shaking his head. "I think that's what I was trying to say," said Ford. For some unexplained reason, the teleport cubicles were in the bathroom. Chapter 15 Time travel is increasingly regarded as a menace. History is being polluted. The Encyclopedia Galactica has much to say on the theory and practice of time travel, most of which is incomprehensible to any- one who hasn't spent at least four lifetimes studying advanced hypermathematics, and since it was impossible to do this before time travel was invented, there is a certain amount of confusion as to how the idea was arrived at in the first place. One ratio- nalization of this problem states that time travel was, by its very nature, discovered simultaneously at all periods of history, but this is clearly bunk. The trouble is that a lot of history is now quite clearly bunk as well. Here is an example. It may not seem to be an important one to some people, but to others it is crucial. It is certainly significant in that it was this single event that caused the Campaign for Real Time to be set up in the first place (or is it last? It depends which way round you see history as happening, and this, too, is now an increasingly vexed question). There is, or was, a poet. His name was Lallafa, and he wrote what are widely regarded throughout the Galaxy as the finest poems in existence, the Songs of the Long Land. They are/were unspeakably wonderful. That is to say, you couldn't speak very much of them at once without being so over- come with emotion, truth and a sense of the wholeness and one- ness of things that you wouldn't pretty soon need a brisk walk round the block, possibly pausing at a bar on the way back for a quick glass of perspective and soda. They were that good. Lallafa had lived in the forests of the Long Lands of Effa. He lived there, and he wrote his poems there. He wrote them on pages made of dried habra leaves, without the benefit of education or correcting fluid. He wrote about the light in the forest, and what he thought about that. He wrote about the darkness in the forest, and what he thought about that. He wrote about the girl who had left him and precisely what he thought about that. Long after his death his poems were found and wondered over. News of them spread like morning sunlight. For centuries they il- luminated and watered the lives of many people whose lives might otherwise have been darker and dryer. Then, shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words to that effect. They traveled the time waves; they found him. They explained the situation——with some difficulty——to him, and did indeed per- suade him. In fact they persuaded him to such effect that he be- came extremely rich at their hands, and the girl about whom he was otherwise destined to write with such precision never got around to leaving him, and in fact they moved out of the forest to a rather nice pad in town and he frequently commuted to the fu- ture to do talk shows, on which he sparkled wittily. He never got around to writing the poems, of course, which was a problem, but an easily solved one. The manufacturers of cor- recting fluid simply packed him off for a week somewhere with a copy of a later edition of his books and stacks of dried habra leaves to copy them out onto, making the odd deliberate mistake and correction on the way. Many people now say that the poems are suddenly worthless. Others argue that they are exactly the same as they always were, so what's changed? The first people say that that isn't the point. They aren't quite certain what the point is, but they are quite sure that that isn't it. They set up the Campaign for Real Time to try to stop this sort of thing going on. Their case was considerably strengthened by the fact that a week after they had set themselves up, news broke that not only had the great Cathedral of Chalesm been pulled down in order to build a new ion refinery, but that the construction of the refinery had taken so long, and had h ad to ex- tend so far back into the past in order to allow ion production to start on time, that the Cathedral of Chalesm had now never been built in the first place. Picture postcards of the cathedral suddenly became immensely valuable. So a lot of history is now gone forever. The Campaigners for Real Time claim that just as easy travel eroded the difference be- tween one country and another, and between one world and an- other, so time travel is now eroding the difference between one age and another. "The past," they say, "is now truly like a foreign country. They do things exactly the same there." 

from Life, The Universe and Everything. Copyright © 1982 by Douglas Adams. Harmony Books, New York. pp. 81-90.
jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel. 雨
[π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [π] [φ]
Thomas Becket (i.) (ii.) The Feudal System (i.) (ii.) The Crusades (i.) (ii.) William of Wykeham (i.) (ii.) John Wyclif (i.) (ii.) Dante (i.) (ii.) Geoffrey Chaucer (i.) (ii.) Christopher Columbus (i.) (ii.) Savonarola (i.) (ii.) Michael Angelo (i.) (ii.) Martin Luther (i.) (ii.) Thomas Cranmer (i.) (ii.) Ignatius Loyola (i.) (ii.) John Calvin (i.) (ii.) Francis Bacon (i.) (ii.) Galileo (i.) (ii.) Héloïse (i.) (ii.) Joan of Arc (i.) (ii.) Saint Theresa (i.) (ii.) Madame de Maintenon (i.) (ii.) Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (i.) (ii.) Madame Récamier (i.) (ii.) Madame de Staël (i.) (ii.) Hannah More (i.) (ii.) George Eliot (i.) (ii.) Alfred the Great (i.) (ii.) Queen Elizabeth (i.) (ii.) Henry of Navarre (i.) (ii.) Gustavus Adolphus (i.) (ii.) Cardinal de Richelieu (i.) (ii.) Oliver Cromwell (i.) (ii.) Louis XIV. (i.) (ii.) Louis XV. (i.) (ii.) Peter the Great (i.) (ii.) Frederic the Great (i.) (ii.) David Lloyd George (i.) (ii.) Theodore Roosevelt (i.) (ii.) Ferdinand Foch (i.) (ii.)

Source: https://www.masslotteryplayersclub.com/scbz/200x/winners.php & https://www.masslottery.com/games/instant/30-dolla200x-150-2017.html
As I'm sure many of you guys/girls know, the 2nd chance deadline for the x200 scratcher was 6/17 at 3:00pm EST.
This will be the 3rd/4 total drawing for this $30 scratcher ticket. The actual drawing will most likely be completed within 48 hours (according to previous drawings).
Breaking down the odds*:
Total Tickets Sold: 7,560,000 (Chance to win: 1/2.78)
Total Losing Tickets: 7560000 - 2719424 = 4,840,576
Total amount of prizes this drawing: 1714
Chance to win a prize (per losing 2nd chance entry): 1714/4,840,576 = .0354%
Your chance to win per 2nd chance entry = 3.5% of 1%.
*The odds assume EVERYBODY enters their losing x200 scratcher and exactly 25% of the tickets were sold between the 2nd and 3rd drawing.
Why did I make this post?: Every 2nd chance drawing for this x200 scratcher has had people win multiple prizes (3+). If the odds are that slim to win a single prize, they either dropped $30000+ on this one scratcher, really lucky, or not that many people enter these 2nd chance drawings. (Probably a mixture of all 3)
What do I want to know from you reddit?: How many entries into the 2nd chance x200 drawing did you have (May 15, 2018 - June 17, 2019)? How many times did you win this drawing (If you win more than 1, just say 1+ if you wish to stay anonymous)?
Personally: I entered 11 losing x200 scratchers during the given timeframe and am waiting for the results. ($330 in losing x200 scratchers)

This is an automatic summary, original reduced by 99%.

For the second time in two and a half years, Kevin Phillips of Lakeville has won a $1 million prize on an instant ticket from the Massachusetts State Lottery.
In addition to this fourth grand prize award, the Mass. State Lottery has awarded a total of 24 second-tier prizes of $25,000 a year for life.
Alexander Lopez is the third Springfield resident in the last two weeks to win a $1 million prize on a Massachusetts State Lottery instant game, claiming the first title prize in the Lottery's newest edition of its popular "$1,000,000 Lucky Numbers" $5 instant game.
The 5B Revocable Trust of Newburyport has claimed a $1 million Mega Millions prize won on a Season Ticket purchased from the Massachusetts State Lottery.
There were three $2 million prize winners who doubled a $1 million prize by playing the game's Megaplier option for an extra $1. Gonzalez claimed his $1 million prize on Monday, July 11 at the Massachusetts State Lottery's Braintree headquarters.
Dean Kimball of Shrewsbury, MA has claimed the top prize in the third of four Second Chance Drawings in the Massachusetts State Lottery's "Ultimate Garden Party" instant "Scratch" ticket game.

Summary Source FAQ Theory Feedback Top five keywords: prize^#1 million^#2 Win^#3 game^#4 instant^#5
Post found in /offbeat.
NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.