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Because we care for our readers, I feel it only right to advise you that I have purchased the winning number in tonight's PowerBall drawing. It would be very foolish of you to go out and waste your money buying a ticket. You can't win, and it will only increase the amount I get paid, so you'll feel like an idiot both ways.

While the jackpot is listed as $340 million, that's a crock: They get to that number by adding together 25 yearly payments of a paltry $13.6 million. Like we're not smart enough to figure that one out.

The real jackpot -- that is, the cash value -- is about $164 million, which is way less but not so bad. Taxes take rather a large bite, but I'll still be left with about $90,000,000. It's really not right to get too far ahead of oneself on things like this, but I think I'll probably quit my day job. But maybe not. How cool would it be to go into the office every day, knowing you can quit any time you want, and the boss knows it too. Or maybe I wouldn't tell him, so only I know the awesome power I hold in my hands. And maybe, just maybe, if the boss gets particularly difficult to take, I'll go behind his back and I'll buy the mortgage on Wuthering Heights from the bank, and then we'll see how he treats me. And Cathy, well, then I'd finally be worthy, and she'd realize . . . .

Well, anyway, perhaps I've already said too much.

I see that Lileks has also bought a ticket. I probably should have let him know that I had bought the winning number, but I had no idea he'd be wasting his money. In any event, he seems to have rather a different take on the whole thing:

Yes, I bought a Powerball ticket. And then I ate it. It’s much more interesting than just buying one and waiting to see if you win; now you hope, intensely, that you lose. If you take down the numbers before you swallow it, you get relief the moment they announce the winning numbers. (Which should be called the losing numbers, since that’s what they are for millions of people.) (I am certain some stand-up “comic” has made that point before, possibly on one of those concert performances that seemed to infest the USA network back when I watched too much cable. Sounds stupid enough, anyway. “Why do they call them the winning numbers? One guy wins! Oughta call ‘em losing numbers! Am I right?” Whoot whoot from the drunken crowd, audience shot of cute women with faces frozen in an unconvincing smile left over from a vaguely amusing reference six jokes ago.) If you don’t write down the numbers before you eat the ticket, you have to wait for the media to tell us where the ticket was bought. If - God forbid - it’s the store where you bought your ticket, you have to wait for someone to show up and present the winning numbers. Excruciating, but once someone comes forward, your relief is unbelievable.