SQUID GAME SEASON 2 BEGAN YESTERDAY ON NETFLIX

Winning $1.22 billion Mega Millions ticket sold in California

Someone in Northern California just got a $1.22 billion holiday gift in the form of a winning Mega Millions ticket. A single ticket purchased at Sunshine Food and Gas in Cottonwood — a community of around 6,000 people, south of Redding — matched all numbers in last night’s drawing. The jackpot, the fifth-largest in the history of the game, has been building since September.

The above from MSNBC.  Further, here is a look back at the year's biggest stories through photos and illustrations.  About this graphic, brain rot was selected as Oxford University Press' word of the year.

I first began watching Squid Game on Netflix a long time ago when it first came out in 2021.  It went on to become the most-watched show of all time on Netflix.  However, after two episodes, I abandoned the series, mostly because I was too busy, and there were better productions, I thought, on Prime and Netflix.  I thus have several options.

• Complete Season One and go on to Two.
• Watch this recap of Season One and go on to Two.
• Play Season One from Episode One and then watch Season Two.
• Don't even bother with Squid Game anymore, after all, I still don't have much time, and there are at least two dozen other series on my watch list, many of them ranked near 100 on Rotten Tomatoes. 

• 
  Got 14 Emmy nominations, and won five.
• Squid Game only has 90/74 ratings.  And, by the way, Season Two already has scores of 85/63.
• So if my decision is go, might as well watch the entirety of Season One because it is rated higher, and I'll get a renewed sense of the whole picture.
• However, if I watch both seasons, I will spend so many hours.  
• Season One:  Just about nine hours over nine episodes.
• Season Two:  Just over 7 hours for 7 episodes.
• And, yes, there will be a Season 3, which should take about as long.  If 8 hours, then I would be spending 24 hours, a whole day, on 3 Seasons of Squid Game.

So let me analyze what I should do.

• Squid Game knocks capitalism and wealth inequity.
• It is dark and vicious, something I don't need or want.  It is also a game of death, tempted by cash.

• 
  The winner, a good-hearted (yes, I now know who will be the champ in Season One, and because you're reading this, you too) Seong Gi-hun prevails at the cost of his basic belief in the goodness of humanity.  That's him to the right.

• 
  In 2021, the 45.6 billion Korea Won (there are 456 contestants) was worth $32 million.  Today, $31 million, so the exchange rate on a visit to South Korea has dropped, still not bad, as this amount would pay the annual average salaries for almost 1000 Korean workers.

• 
  Some other comparisons.
• Jeff Bezos makes $1.9 million per hour, or roughly that same $45.6 billion won in a day.
• Elon Musk passed Bezos as the wealthiest person, and the winner of the Squid Game would have to win this game over 12,700 times to accumulate the wealth of Musk.
• If there were 456 contestants, with one winner, then 455 should have died in the game, right?  
• Well, yes and no.  No because this video said at least 470 died.  Why, watch the video.
• I couldn't quite understand that video, so until I do, let this link serve as the official number of deaths:  455.

Well, in conclusion, wondering if I will gain any benefit from 3 Seasons of Squid Game, I don't know.   24 hours seem like a long time.  And it took 27 hours to get home from Zurich, and that was an ordeal.  Are there any redeeming virtues?  Yes, I think so.  Thus, I will go back to Episode 1 of Season One, and follow up with Seasons 2 and 3.  And in the future, avoid prematurely telling you what happened.

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