FinsRule's Blog

I'd be perfectly okay with that. You are only taking advantage of the garage's incentive for you to lose the ticket. Since it doesn't benefit them to actually lose it, I would be okay with pretending, for one second, that you did. Besides, parking garages screw us every chance they get.



Example 1: At the BWI airport I parked for 27 minutes. At 31-60 minutes, you have to pay for a full hour. However, the car in front of me evidently had a lost ticket, and it took about 5 minutes for the attendant to do a bunch of paperwork on it. Then she tried to charge me for a whole hour. I argued that I was only parked for 27 minutes, and I shouldn't be punished for her taking forever to do paperwork. The bitch charged me for 60 minutes anyway. I later wrote a letter to the company that managed the garage demanding a refund for the extra 30 minutes, and they sent me a check.



Example 2: At a downtown Baltimore parking garage I couldn't find an empty space and asked to leave. A different bitch refused to let me out for free, and chaged me the minimum about of 30 minutes, which I think was $8. I should have wrote a letter there as well.

Clever of you to think of that.

I think it would make up for all those poor souls who only do park for a very short time but who do lose their tickets and have to pay outrageously even though the attendant remembers that they just entered a short time before.

The garage should have a better method for someone who stays longer than 24 hours, or forget it. Otherwise the default fact is the maximum charge is really $24 and they should admit it.



I'm the type of guy who is too dumb to have figured it out, pays $36, then somebody I know will shake his head in disbelief that I had my head up my ass so far [g]

I don't know the setup of the garage but if there are cameras you could get a bill in the mail.



I tried that at Logan Airport in Boston and they said I didn't need a ticket because they knew the exact time I entered the garage. They were right on the money.

Wiz -

I am surprised you didn't do option 3 which happens way to often here in DC - people wait for the parking people to leave, and merely ram their car through the flimsy parking gates. Of course at the one garage I used to park at, after too many of those, the parking attendants affixed a 3/4" pipe to the back of the gate. Would've hated to be that guy trying to bust out.



-B

Sounds like they probably raised the rate from 12 to 18 in the past, and never updated their "lost ticket" fee. It doesn't make sense that 2 days in a garage would be more than the maximum time in the garage (which is to what the lost ticket fee should be pegged).



It's funny to see the Wiz all PG-13 and going after horrible employees. How would you have described them if they were men? I have an idea.

And it reminds me of the old PA Turnpike Scam. Let's say it costs a car $30.00 to go the whole trip from exit 330 to exit 1, and it's a round trip you make weekly. If you lose your ticket, you pay the highest fare. So the first time, you hold on to the ticket, and just pay the 30 bucks. Then, on the way home, you get on at exit 4. And take it to exit 327. But when you get off, you use your exit 330 ticket, and you pay the 50 cents for the 3 miles you unofficially went. Then go back to exit 330 when you get on next time, and take it to exit 1. Use your exit 4 ticket. Pay 50 cents instead of 30 bucks. For it to work, you need two close exits you can utilize where you want to enter and exit.



Before you try, now they print a time on your ticket. You might have trouble convincing them you got on 4 miles over 2 days ago.

Reminds me of Fat Tony talking to Bart:



"Bart, if my family was starving and I took a loaf of bread, is that stealing? Suppose I have a big family and need to steal a whole truckload of bread--is that stealing? Now suppose my family needed cigarettes instead of bread, and instead of giving them to my family, the price I gave them for was as good as giving them away, is that stealing?"





I'd call it more "beating the system" than stealing, for the record.

I liken it to advantage gambling. I think in the last few years I have saved people alot of money by telling them to park at MGM Detroit or Greektown casino which is free instead of paying $10-$40 in some cases for other event parking. At most its nothing but a 10 minute walk to all venues in downtown Detroit.

Well let's face it, YES it is stealing. You parked there, you received a service, and then didn't pay for the service you received. As much as I hate expensive parking garages, if you didn't like the rate, you could have parked somewhere else or further away from your destination.

Regarding the above comment, he did pay $24 for the service, which was the requested price to pay for a lost ticket. If anything he is guilty of lying, but that could be rectified by deliberately losing the ticket. I would compare this to going to a carnival that charges $1 for one ride, and $11 for 10 rides. You intend to go on 10 rides, so you buy 10 tickets for $1 each one at a time. No guilt in doing that.

Legally this could be considered retail theft or theft of services. It is a fraudulent act that was commited. I would consider this the same as someone coming into the police department and saying they "lost" their medications so they could get a report and get more pain meds without the additional price. Its wrong either way. But then I guess my morality and public service gets in the way of my saving a buck.

Can't you play against your friend at his place?

I used to live in Kansas City, so one time I ventured down to Downstream. I found it to be very pleasant, and I played the Pai Gow game for a long time. I would doubt they'll get rid of that game though, as the midwest market loves it.



When I was there, they had a fantastic BJ promotion going on, and while I didn't take advantage of it, the rules are very favorable. They have to be, as the competition provides favorable rules to compensate for the stupid ante.

Quote:

...It's Card Craps. It's really funny to watch. A player calls out a number combination...[q/]



A player? that mystifies me, of course I know nothing about card craps

Odious - I know I didn't do a good job of explaining it. There are 12 cards laid out in two rows - 1-6 and 1-6. The 12 cards have 2 aces, 2 twos, 2 threes, etc.



If a player calls out 32, then card 3 from row 1 and card 2 from row 2 are turned over, which makes the "roll"

'

http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/docs/Fricker6.pdf

Not quite what you were looking for, but it is a good read.

And from here

Quote:

...the game was being generated by a very non-random method. It probably was easier to program a large number of set configurations than an infinite number of random possibilities

http://synflood.at/blog/index.php?/archives/132-Fun-with-Solitaires-RNG.html

Yep. It appears to be seeded by the second.

I used to program some simple simulations on my Mac using a freeware version of Basic - until I discovered that the RNG was seeded at the time Basic was launched. I.E. Everytime I restarted Basic, I got the same results.



Now I used random numbers from www.Random.org and get better results.