Saturday, March 22, 2008

100th post

You have entered 42,091 Bills worth $117,433
Bills with hits: 3,123 Total hits: 3,533
Hit rate: 7.42% Slugging Percentage: 8.39% (total hits/total bills)
George Score: 1,143.33
Your rank (based on George Score) is #555
(out of 52,047 current users with a George Score. [98.9 Percentile])
Your State Rank in Florida is: 32 out of 6,720 [99.5]

I got my new fives in the register today. They seemed pretty well received. I didn’t stamp them because I knew that I might get someone who wanted to say something just because they were new bills. I didn’t need someone getting confused by the stamps on top of that. A coworker handed out two without comment. I gave a few more as change and the woman asked for most of the rest for a twenty. I don’t know what happened to the last one. I have to see if I can get more.

I also got a hit on a twenty. These are pretty rare, especially considering that I don’t mark them. Usually, they go to the bank and I don’t expect a hit on them. However, if I’m going to the casino, I may mark them. (This way, I can tell if I get them back.) It’s not surprising that the bill only made it to Fort Lauderdale. From what I understand, twenties don’t travel too far. I am surprised that it took only 81 days to get a hit.

That’s all for now.

Friday, March 21, 2008

You have entered 42,083 Bills worth $117,352
Bills with hits: 3,117 Total hits: 3,526
Hit rate: 7.41% Slugging Percentage: 8.38% (total hits/total bills)
George Score: 1,143.12
Your rank (based on George Score) is #557
(out of 52,002 current users with a George Score. [98.9 Percentile])
Your State Rank in Florida is: 33 out of 6,716 [99.5]

I got some new fives today. I honestly can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t like them. Sure, there’s that big purple 5 on the back. It’s actually a lot bigger than I expected. And a lot more purple. The demo on the Web site doesn’t do it justice.

I’m going to see if I can get a few in the register at work tomorrow to see how customers react. Most people don’t think that the new bills look like real currency because they’re used to the old design that we’ve had for way too long. I thin we’ve been way overdue for currency redesign.

I did also get some interesting bills recently, including one with a hemp leaf. It had the corresponding "I grew hemp" stamp, but I couldn’t get that one without getting the serial number. This is the first I’ve seen of that bill up close and personal, although I’ve heard of people stamping bills that way.

I found a $2 bill, seen here, that said "Good Luck in 2006" on it. It would appear to be a bit past it’s prime, but it’s a nice sentiment. This one, I’m having trouble figuring out and only part of it has to do with the handwriting. (You have to view the full image to see the handwriting.)

From what I can make out, it says "Who ever receive this bill will be bless /// The Jesus-Christ". I’m thinking it was done by someone who doesn’t speak English as their first language. (I will admit that my fellow native English speakers never cease to amaze me with their poor literacy skills.) I still don’t get why people do this. I appreciate the fact that someone is wishing me well, but I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God or that Jesus Christ is the savior.

Anyway, I’m not trying to start a religious debate. I started out just wanting to share that I had gotten a few of the new fives and I decided to throw in the pictures. Until next time…

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Many hits and many bills

You have entered 41,117 Bills worth $114,220
Bills with hits: 3,046 Total hits: 3,448
Hit rate: 7.41% Slugging Percentage: 8.39% (total hits/total bills)
George Score: 1,140.53
Your rank (based on George Score) is #558
(out of 51,814 current users with a George Score. [98.9 Percentile])
Your State Rank in Florida is: 32 out of 6,697 [99.5]

I read the other day that Gulfstream Park, where I gamble a lot, isn’t doing so well. (You can read the story here.) It’s not so much that the casino is doing poorly; it’s just that it’s not doing as well as expected. It stems mostly from the construction of shops on the property, which is keeping people away.

It would suck if the casino closed. There’s another casino not to far away, but the other one would be more difficult to get to. I’d have to take a different bus that’s operated by another county. I really don’t think that Gulfstream will be closing any time soon. Casinos tend to do well. It’s just the thought of not being able to get as many bills into circulation is a little scary.

I also got a new stamp and pad. It reads “These bills were made for spendin’” and will be used on twos. I haven’t had much of a chance to use it yet, since twos seem to be hard to come by as of late. The idea is to let people know that I don’t want the bills to end up in a collection or at the bank. The intent of spending the bills is to have them given out as change.

I got an orange ink pad with it, but I think that may have been a mistake. The orange doesn’t seem to be as visible. I’ve been using it in conjunction with another stamp marked in red ink, so at least I have some visibility. Orange wasn’t as bold as I had hoped. At least I’ll be getting some use out of it.

In other news, I did get a six-hitter. If you’re reading this post years after the fact, it’s entirely possible that this bill will get more hits, so I’ll have to explain that a six-hitter is a bill that gets six hits, or seven entries. (The original entry doesn’t technically count as a hit, since hits are only subsequent entries.)

In hopes of getting other six-hitters, I went to two banks today. One gave me what I call semi-consecutive or semi-sequential bills, which is where they take sequential bills and split them up. I may get spurts of five or ten bills in order or with serial numbers close to each other, but the majority of the bills are out of order.

Even though consecutive bills are very easy to enter, semi-consecutive bills are very difficult to enter, since I often have to sort the bills and I have to pay attention so as not to enter bills that I don’t have. The reason I hate this is that it means more work than getting either consecutive or all random bills. I really wish that banks wouldn’t do it.

I think it’s done because people generally don’t like getting all consecutive bills, so the bank figures that it’s better to give out a few at a time. To make matters worse, a lot of the bills come crinkled. Not only do I have a lot of work, but the bills look used, too.

Well, I think that’s all the complaining for now. I’m sure I’ll have something else in a few days.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

You have entered 40,041 Bills worth $111,370
Bills with hits: 2,961 Total hits: 3,342
Hit rate: 7.39% Slugging Percentage: 8.35% (total hits/total bills)
George Score: 1,137.00
Your rank (based on George Score) is #574
(out of 51,585 current users with a George Score. [98.9 Percentile])
Your State Rank in Florida is: 32 out of 6,675 [99.5]

I’ve passed 40,000 bills entered. This is pretty big for me. I know I’m not quite in the top ten overall, but I’m working on it and may soon pass 30 within the state.

I actually entered 3,010 bills last month, which is the second time I’ve entered at least 3,000 bills in the same calendar month. The thing that scares me is that I entered more than $10,000 in one calendar month, and it was in the shortest month on the calendar. (For those that aren’t too quick with math, that translates into an average of $3.41 per bill, give or take a few tenths of a cent.)

I also got two international hits yesterday, which can be found here and here. That’s not including the Canadian hit I got today, which can be found here. I’d say that my bills like to head out in the world.

I just figured I’d give an update.