I just stumbled over http://www.powerballonline.com/ which offers a service of buying PowerBall tickets for those not in participating states. I was over at http://biggamelottery.com/ checking what the cash value of today's $26million drawing was going to be when I saw that PowerBall is up to $250million. Needless to say, "I could use" that sort of scratch (or even the $141million cash option)! However, instead of pouting (or plotting an extra drive down to Indiana in the rental car we still have from over the weekend), I clicked on the link. While I wouldn't want to make it a week-in-week-out thing, their deal is not too bad, you pay them $1 service fee for each $1 ticket you order (minimum of 5 for $10.00) and agree that they get a 1% cut of the winnings. This is similar to having an out-of-state buddy pick them up, I guess ... plus I'm sure the buddy would be wanting more that 1% if they did pick up the winning ticket for you!
Anyway, I now have ten bucks worth of hope to keep me from the suicidal spiral for at least the next couple of days (they pick the PowerBall game on Wednesday).