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I think I may have won the Taiwanese lottery in February, 2000...

Sitting at my desk, I go to grab a kleenex from my little packet of kleenexes (ok, just what is the plural form of Kleenex?!) that is stashed in my purse. Out drops this little wadded up receipt paper. I carefully unfold the receipt and, upon further examination, I realize that it is written in Chinese characters. Then, I remember my trip to Taiwan back in Feb, 2000...

Apparently, on Valentines Day 2000 at exactly 10:36am, I stopped in to the local FamilyMart in Taipei to pick up something (sorry, don't remember exactly what it was and I can't read Chinese but it cost NT$30). I paid with a NT$1000 bill and got NT$970 back in change.

Well, the receipt also turned out to be a lotto ticket of sorts (although in Taiwan it is called: "Uniform-Invoice Winning Numbers"). I went to the Ministry of Finance website (printed on the back of my receipt).

Unfortunately, they apparently don't keep an archive of Uniform-Invoice Winning Numbers longer than about 6 months or so...but I'm just willing to bet I won the Grand Prize. Had I claimed my Grand Prize, I would have won exactly NT$2million!!!! What does that mean? Well, I'm not sure what the exchange rate was in 2000, but that would be approximately USD$60,938.45140 as of today (January 19, 2007: 11:15am)

So, bottom line: “You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'"