The Bet is Over

The No More Snow in 2009 Bet is over and I was incorrect.

I've always said that you can make 100 insane predictions and if only one of them comes true, people will forget the failed ones and call you a oracle and buy any book you print.

Back in February of 2009, I predicted that Columbus, OH would not receive any more snow in 2009. This was mainly brought on by a couple of future casts that predicted six feet of snow two weeks out.

Though the end of February and then March we didn't get any snow. Towards the end of April we had some flurries, but nothing else. Summer came and then Fall. While other places around the states got early snow, Columbus remained shielded with a dome of positive thoughts and impossible odds.

Right at the end of November, I shared this bet with my local weatherman. He replied:


But then the weeks started to go by. The snow Jym predicted in the first week never materialized. And by the second week, the future cast looked clear. On Wednesday of this week, they predicted flurries for the weekend. Then by Thursday that was updated to snow. And more snow.

Last night as we drove back from Erik's house, the first hint of snow began to fall and those little tiny flakes crushed my Nostradamus aspirations. This morning there is a carpet of way more than 1/4" inch of snow on the ground and the bet is off.

Please check by again in the first week of January for my predictions of 2010. For those interested, here are the links to my predictions from 2007 and 2008:

2007 Predictions
2008 Predictions

Josh is a big winner

Josh and Sarah invited us out to Scioto Downs for some local ponies racing entertainment.

I lost $40.

Josh walked off with $200+ by the end of the night. Here was his big $166 winner on a $4 bet:


The big winner himself:

The $10,000,000 Mayan Calendar Bet

The Mayan calendar ends on December 21st, 2012. There are many who claim that the world will end on that December 21st or the next business day.

I am here to make a wager with these so called apocalyptic soothsayers. If you are willing to stand behind your foresight or stand in front of your hind-sight, I will make the following bet with you:

If the world does not end on December 21st, 2012 (or the following business day), you will owe me $1 (one American dollar.)

If the world does end on December 21st, 2021 (or the following business day), I will pay you $10,000,000 (ten million American dollars.)

The following are acceptable apocalypses:

• Disease/Plague that wipes out 99.9% of the population
• Solar Winds that rape the Earth of its atmosphere and turn us into mutants
• Nuclear Winter population extinction (extended cold period caused by nuclear bombs)
• Nucular Winter population extinction (Nuclear Winter caused by George Bush)
• Biblical Proportion of Something
• Flood (no ark allowed)
• Impact event
• Shit Tornado (well worth the ten million my friend)
• Multi-Volcanic eruption
• Alien Invasion (enslavement will cancel the bet)
• Zombies

If you would like to take this bet, please contact me at holyjuan@gmail.com.

You won the bet

About eight months ago, I lost a bet to Conny because Ohio State could not put their money where my mouth was. As I am not a welsher on bets, (except the $100 “Hair Past Her Shoulders” bet with Red Head Jen and your long hair is totally worth the $100 so technically I DID pay) I got my $20 together and got it ready to give to Conny.

First I laid out the 20 one dollar bills and taped them together.


With a flip, my canvas was ready.


I added some insults that are very personal to Conny. I made them in the first person so the strippers he gives them to will know a little bit more about my good friend Conny.


My personal favorite:


Here is the complete list of insults:

I like little boys.
My birth certificate is an apology from the condom company.
I like Vista.
McCain is Dreamy
I don’t get “The Office.”
I like anal sex, just don’t choke me so hard.
Kazaam was hilarious.

I then took the canvas apart and stacked them so that his secrets would remain as such. I can imagine a young girl with the stage name "The Librarian" getting a piece of this puzzle and wondering what the mystery message was.


Congratulations Conny! You won the bet!

Double or nothing on the OSU v. OU game?

Napkin Bet

napkin bet, originally uploaded by holyjuan.

Conny was in town for a few days and we had a few drinks at Byrne's Pub.

During our conversation, he suggested that Ohio State was going to get beat by 14 points in the Championship Game.

So we each bet. Ten bucks if each person's team wins outright. Twenty if the team wins by 14 points.

We drew it up on a napkin. Looks like a logic problem. I like our signatures though.

Downtown Brown

I am still of the belief that the internet is fake. That most the “people” you deal with on a daily basis via the net are bots and a few lines of programming smeared over toast. I’d have to guess that there are probably only 79 real people on the internet. Six of those people are responsible for 6,456,332 MySpace pages each.

In this fake world, I found myself making a bet with Carpanza. Carpanza’s some guy out of Minneapolis that likes to drink and seems like he’s got his shit together. We are in a Fantasy Football league and we "talk" crap, via the internet, about how crappy the other guy’s crappy players are. We also found ourselves talking smack about Ohio State and the Iowa Hawkeyes. While this talk of the smack was commencing, I made a bet with him that Ohio State would beat the Hawkeyes. He disagreed and agreed to the bet. The wager was for the winner’s choice of a six pack of beer from beeronthewall.com.

Ohio State won.

I chose a six pack of Lost Coast’s Downtown Brown. This was one of Miss Sally favorite beers back when our relationship was young. She had drank it in California and we couldn’t find a distributor in Ohio. It seems the only way to get it is by winning a bet.

So here’s where it got interesting for me. Would Carpanza, an imaginary internet character, actually buy a six pack of beer and have it shipped to some stranger in Ohio who was also probably imaginary?

Today we received a very well packaged, 6-pack of Downtown Brown. The bottles were lovingly swaddled in cardboard and they even folded up the decorative, 6-pack carrier and included it in the box. It was beautiful.


As I type, they are chilling in the refrigerator, waiting for me to savor a Buckeye win, the warm memories of young love and my new belief that perhaps there is a shred of humanity out there in the electronic aether.

The enclosed card read, “I hope this beer arrives skunky, and gives you explosive diarrhea.”

Thanks Carpanza.