I've entered a football pool at work. It cost me $2.00, but the chances of winning are way better than Lotto 6/49.
If it were a straight lottery, I'd be feeling better. But it is a pool and thus requires that you choose your answers carefully. I chose mine carefully. My tactic - to figure out who'd win a particular game - was to ask myself about the sounds of the state or city. I liked the way Tennessee sounded so I chose Tennessee. I'd been to Arizona and liked the 'z' sound, and so I chose Arizona. I just don't like the sound of Tampa Bay. It makes a harsh, tamping sound in my eyes and ears when I quietly voice it. It's like hearing flies when you're trying to sleep in on the weekend. Such an awful sound.
Sounds are important all over the place. I heard a cognitive scientist recently explaining some research she'd done that suggested that we think women with soft vowels primarily contained in their names as being more attractive. And men need hard vowels in their names. By doing A/B replacement stuff in their study, a clear and significant effect was picked up. But it was pretty small. I suspect the colour of your eyes has a much greater effect.
Sound was used to see if I had a kidney stone. Sound is how we put ideas about. Touch too, but that's not as pervasive. Street signs don't use sound, but some pedestrian crossing-lights in Toronto are augmented by a strange directional pipping sound - to help people who use sounds mostly but don't use sight. My cell phone uses touch, a vibration pulse to communicate an idea to me. Can't think of a good example where ideas are communicated using taste. Try to intentionally communicate with taste. "When you have a taste of roast beef, proceed to the collector lanes. When you have a taste of gin, please note that this plot of land contains iron ore. " Who'd bother? There are so many clearer ways.
Hope I win the football pool. Part of what I hope is that people will think (if I win) that I really know football and that they see me as being particularly talented in the ways of football (hockey would be a nice extra). That way I momentarily gain entrance to a club I've always a little liked to be a part of but won't pay the ticket to get in: sports enthusiasts. The ticket is enthusiasm about sports. I just don't have any. I have enthusiasm for my new book (actually ordered from a rare book dealer in Florida as an old, but hard-to-find first edition) called "Objects Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis". It cost $7 US more just to get it through customs. Weird. But just having a first edition somehow makes me feel closer to good old Otto (the guy who wrote it). It is such a nicely written text - he thinks so clearly. Wish I was like that.
Winning the $100 in the football pool would be the best.