Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
posted
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: It would be good if you could follow Carol Vorderman around shouting that all, Ringers.
What is it with loan-shark and insurance companies, that slebs all seem willing to sell their souls advertising them? I'm sure Sir Steve Redgrave isn't so hard up for a few pennies that he HAS to squeeze his post-given-up-exercise lumpen form into a stripey tracksuit (of the sort not seen IRL since 1983) and gurn for the benefit of the Admiral cameras. Posts: 3340
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Neurotic Cat
My fortune cookie's empty... That's also the title of my autobiography.
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Ok I'm beginning to think that perhaps this thread wasnt particularly well thought out and probably pretty insensitive.
I dont feel the world owes me anything nor that I should have an easy way out of things.
I did want to participate here but perhaps my overall adrenalin rush at having an easy way out of what has been a pretty bleak 6 months clouded my judgement slightly.
It was my intention to start a discussion that people could contribute to perhaps describing something unexpected that had made them happy recently. Something unexpected which had made them smile a bit more than usual.
Apologies to anyone I might have offended and future contributions will be read and re-read before sending...
n.b. I am pleased that although the thread took an unexpected turn, at least its been getting replies!
-------------------- You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats Posts: 150
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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quote:Originally posted by Neurotic Cat: Something unexpected which had made them smile a bit more than usual.
That's not "luck" though, is it? That's just something nice. I don't think I'd describe myself as "lucky", but I like serendipitous stuff, as when people order the exact precise food that I've got in my fridges and I want to get through so I can put something else on the menu.
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Some years ago a friend of mine was caught selling drugs (not bad ones though!) in South Africa, and was swiftly arrested and given a good beating by the friendly local police.
On the way to court for his hearing (custodial sentence expected) the police transfer van was in a crash and he sustained some minor injuries. The van carried on to court regardless.
The Judge said it was unacceptable to fail to take an injured prisoner to hospital following an accident, and chucked the case out of court.
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posted
I always feel pretty lucky when you find a packet of polos you had forgotten about in a coat pocket. Sometimes it happens with fivers. That makes me feel lucky. Luck to be a forgetful **** like.
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quote:Originally posted by Neurotic Cat: n.b. I am pleased that although the thread took an unexpected turn, at least its been getting replies!
That's just it - a lot of new posters start a thread along the lines of "hey folks I'm here" then roll over and expire. You're already up to two pages, with a variety of decent responses - you're doing well! You haven't offended anyone! Posts: 8657
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posted
A guy I knew years ago told me this tale of good fortune. One night he woke with a start, on some sort of fear-induced auto-pilot he ran from his bedroom. Within seconds of clearing the bedroom door the entire bedroom ceiling caved in.
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I've been trying to remember if I've ever got 'free money' beyond a couple of quid in wrong change. I mean, I've received the occasional unexpected tax refund, including an extremely useful £600 this year, but of course I'd already paid the bloody money to the IR in the first place so that hardly counts - it was just unexpected.
There was a good one a few years ago. I used to cycle to work from Wandsworth to Upper Thames Street and then they transferred me on loan to a unit in Vauxhall. As my HQ was still up in the City I was able to claim a travel allowance to my new work place which was closer to home and I cycle anyway so I was claiming Standard Extortion Rate Tube fare money for the price of less tyre wear. Or something.
Then I got transferred permanently to the Vauxhall unit and then a few months later that unit got transferred to Moorgate. Travel claim restarted, though this time it was actually further from home, so not quite such a good scam.
Thing is, they used to pay this allowance as a lump sum every year, and when I left the company they actually remembered this and took great pains to claim back a proportion of the money paid. This became hugely complicated as I'd already paid tax on the money, but they wanted the untaxed amount back and then for me to claim back the tax from the IR. When I wrote to the tax office about this they wrote back saying they were "unable to comment"!
I think I gave up shortly afterwards as it was about a couple of hundred quid involved and I'd already made hay while the sun shone and all that so no point getting upset. But I guess the army got a free hand grenade out of me or whatever they use tax for these days.
Has anyone actually read to the end of this post? zzzZZZZ
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posted
Oh! I remembered another one...one time in Tesco they had avocados on buy one get one free, but they were all getting old and squishy so they had reduced the price to clear. But they had not programmed the tills properly and still had the buy one get one free thing on them, so for each half price avocado we bought they had to give us a full price one free, which kind of meant they should pay us to take them away. We didnt insist on this but took the whole lot and had a guacamole party for all our friends.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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When I bought my Poomer I was working on a project in Luxembourg. I bought the car from Virgin Cars and because I couldn't get a decent dialup internet connection from our project room, I called up a helpful customer sales chap who took my credit card details for the purpose of taking the deposit of £1800; fast-forward four months to the delivery of the car and said amount has never been taken on my card, nor has it to this day (4+ years later). So I got the car extremely cheaply.
The guy who sits behind me at work just bought a 30Gb MP3 player from Amazon for £170. When it arrived, the software CD-ROM didn't work so he requested a replacement CD-ROM on the Amazon site. A couple of days ago he got called down to reception where a parcel was awaiting him, containing a brand spanking new replacement MP3 player and CD-ROM with a £0.00 invoice. There had never been any problem with the MP3 player itself, merely the CD-ROM. So he now has two MP3 players for the price of one.
-------------------- i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song Posts: 4243
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posted
I once came out of a shop and chucked the receipt in the nearest bin, then walked the twenty minutes back to my flat. Unpacking my pockets, I realised I still had the receipt... which meant I'd thrown away my five pound change!
I trekked back to the bin and carried out a clever performance of casually circling round it, glancing at the contents rather than standing over it and digging in like a tramp... and to my joy saw the crumpled silvery-blue sitting on top of the rubbish-pile. Without further shame I snatched it up and headed home.
I think this qualifies as a tale of genuine luck, even if I didn't actually make money out of it.
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Atually, something good like that did happen to me once. I ordered a pair of Pioneer SPL subwoofers from some online company. The cost of these woofers was £150 each. Now I'm assuming they weren't in stock and they just sent me some superior ones for the same price, as I was invoiced for the ones they sent me, not the ones I ordered. When I checked the value of the woofers they'd sent me, they were £250. Each. They'd essentially given me £200's worth of woofer for free. This was part of an order totalling about £800 though so I didn't feel too bad about it.
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posted
If we're talking about acts of foolishness, I accidentally threw my lunch rubbish, including purse, into the bins outside my student union. I only realised about three hours later as I was getting ready to go out, and had to go and root through litter in the dark. But I was successful!
Also, one time I went to buy currency on my credit card, and they had to run a check (verify my details with the bank, get a security card, whatever they get up to). Mysteriously, the £250 never appeared on my statement. I waited for months, thinking it must have been delayed, but they'd obviously mucked something up when inputting my data.
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I have an invoice from an interpreter for about a thousand euros for a job she did for me, about two years ago, which I have never paid, nor has she ever called me about it. Everybody else on that job made sure I paid up like a good boy, but not this woman.
posted
I have a problem with sleepwalking. One night recently I woke up on a golf course and returned home to find that the engine of a jet plane had fallen through the roof of my bedroom and shattered my bed!
Not only did my lucky sleepwalking help to prevent my own certain death, it also enabled me to see a giant rabbit, expose a local paedophile, meet Carter off ER, and learn about travel through space and time! How lucky is that! The only downside to my story is that the world is due to end tonight.
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quote:Originally posted by fish: The only downside to my story is that the world is due to end tonight.
Fuck! I didn't watch Battlestar Gallactica last night, assuming I could watch the repeat on Sky Mix on Sunday. What time is the world due to end? I might have time to download it when I get home.
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posted
One time, when I was about 17, I left the hot tap running round at my girlfriend's parents house, which was a country cottage. They weren't in, and we left to drive to the station, drop off her sister, and then onto my parents' house for a few days. Just before her sister departed on the train, she remembered that she hadn't fed the cat, so we had to drive back to the house to do so. By then, thousands of pounds of damage had been inflicted by the scalding water, having cracked the sink, soaked through the carpet and floor, poured down the walls of the kitchen, taking off paint, felling original pictures, and causing damage to the plaster. It was in a bad way, but she took the fall.
If her sister hadn't have mentioned the cat (which had been fed), then the tap would have run for two or three days. I think that this was probably my nearest encounter with total disaster.
posted
But how exactly can you leave a tap running. Did you forget to have a bath?
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
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posted
It is not exactly exciting, but lucky I guess: there is a particular store here who can’t seem to get their act together when it comes to pricing their goods. Froopy and I always manage to convince them that since it was their error in mislabeling, they must sell the items to us at the marked price. Our greatest score was buying a set of four $99 each dining chairs for $19.99 each.
Edit: Upon rereading my post I realize that this isn’t luck at all but a combination of the store’s incompetence and our tenacity.
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: But how exactly can you leave a tap running. Did you forget to have a bath?
No, I was washing my face in the sink, and I was stoned.
Do the sinks around your parts not have overflows? How strange....
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scrawny
One Mojito, two Gin and Tonics, Three Bacardi Lime Sodas, and a couple of pints of Stella please.
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quote:Originally posted by kovacs: ...backing off when Scrawny posted an annoyed response...
S'true, I was annoyed, but only because people were claiming not only that I didn't have a right to claim for it (which I acknowledged) but that I also didn't have a right to be annoyed, which is ridiculous. Of course I was annoyed, otherwise everytime I went out I'd leave my front door wide open and objects of value clearly marked with a post-it in order to help those less fortunate. having stuff that was once in your possession be removed from your possession through no fault of your own is annoying.
I have tried to get involved in rucks recently, but...well, there doesn't seem much point. Anyone, for what it's worth, is welcome to come and have a go if they think they're hard enough. Please bear in mind however that I have very fragile self-esteem. Ithanksyou.
-------------------- ...because that's the kind of guy you are. Posts: 2730
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
posted
I have remembered a luck! Two good mates work in Taba, and were supposed to go to the Hilton with clients the night it was bombed. She didn't feel like it, so they didn't go. And now for some reason they feel the need to have babies. Posts: 3340
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