Views from the Rail

Anyone who knows a little bit about me knows that I like silly prop bets. Recently I considered two noteworthy bets with my good pal BBB. We made the first but couldn’t come to terms on the second. The first concerns our mutual friend Jay.

Now for those of you who don’t know Jay, let’s just say he’s a bit noobertish. To wit: BBB and I spent at least 40 minutes telling him how to cook a hot dog. Don’t get me wrong. Jay is one of my favorite people, but he’d be one of the first to tell you that he’s somewhat absent minded.

Anyway, he’s thinking about joining us on our June Vegas adventure. So BBB and I got talking about the chances that he’ll actually make it out west. We both decided that he was somewhat unlikely to actually make it. I told BBB that I thought there was about a 27% chance that Jay would actually come. BBB agreed that was a fair line so he bet me 4 Abraham Lincolns that Jay would not come. 3:1 if I win.

The second bet is a bit stranger. I was watching a show on NatGeo about the possible existence of life on other planets. BBB and I agreed that there is probably intelligent life out there in our galaxy, but we thought it was pretty unlikely we’d ever make contact with said life. Unfortunately we thought the odds were long enough that we’d make contact in our lifetimes that neither of us wanted to offer them. I’m not sure what the correct number is, but my guess is that it’s over 10,000:1 against us receiving a message from an alien race. The galaxy is just such a big place and the chances of intelligent life being close enough and advanced enough to send out a message, much less have that message reach us, are so small.

Plus there’s always the chance intelligent life contacts Jay first. In which case we’re fucked.