Kar(ma) Crash

Well, I didn't come back to you on Saturday to tell you how my horses got on in the Grand National..

Two of my 3 choices got in the top 4... none of them managing to win (wish I'd had a quid on the winner though... 100/1 - wow!).

Our Flunky had a go working out how much I should have won this morning in advance of me going to collect my ill-gotten gains... and he reckoned that I should get something like £18... and I thought "Okay... at least I got more out than I put in".

Anyway, went down at dinnertime to collect the money... and the bookie gave me £38.13! Which came as a bit of a shock, but I decided that Flunky must have got his sums wrong.

So... came back to work, and asked him how he worked it out...

First Horse: £2.50 each way @ 14/1... so 2.5 x 14 / 4 = 8.75
Second Horse: £2.50 each way @ 7/1... so 2.5 x 7 / 4 = 4.37
plus 5 quid stake money back = £18.12 (or £18.13 depending where you do your rounding)

Meaning it looks like the bookie has given me £20 too much!

Now, the right thing to do for my karma would be to go and check with the bookie and tell them that it seems like they've made a mistake... but that £20 will instead take me and my pal for our tea in the pub tonight since we didn't go out on Friday night. I figure it's too late for me to save my soul by doing the right thing karmically... There's a room in Hell picked out for me already, all decorated in my least favourite colour and with Daniel O'Donnell's greatest hits playing 24/7!

What's the bets I get food poisoning as temporary karmic revenge anyway?

I did manage an honest win of £5 on the lottery Thunderball on Saturday night, though!

The Laughing Buddha And His Stolen Mo-Jo!

Ever since I got one years ago from my sister-in-law, I've had a thing for Laughing Buddhas (or Hoteis, and I've got 6 or 7 of them in various materials dotted around the place.

There is a belief in folklore that to rub the Buddha's belly brings prosperity, and I do it hoping that I'm going to win the Lottery

However, last night my Buddha was taken advantage of, and his mo-jo stolen!

My brother was along, and he spotted the one in the living room window... "A-ha! Buddha!" he exclaimed, "Rub, rub, rub his belly!"... and he did!

Later on I got a text which said "Hey! Thank Buddha for me... £14 on the lottery!"

Bastard! He stole my prosperity!

Scratch That...

Sum total of my lottery winnings (which I only got round to checking last night) was £2 on a scratchcard that COST me £2...

Took it back to Woolies at dinnertime and, as I'm borderline skint 'til payday on Thursday (okay, okay... I'm across-the-border-into-enemy-territory-and-can-see-the-whites-of-their-eyes skint), I was determined I was going to get the £2, and wasn't going to get another card... But when the guy behind the counter said "Do you just want another card?", I found myself saying "Oh, go on then".

Scratched it when I got back to work - and I won £20! Woo-hoo!

So my last £10 in the bank can stay in the bank until, hopefully, pay day! And I could afford a vanilla latte after work... yummy...

Not that much else of any note over the weekend... Not that impressed with my chocolate beer - which is a shame, because there's another bottle of it in the fridge.

Really enjoyed "Guilty Pleasures" on ITV on Saturday night... Did anyone else see it? I'm not really that big a KT Tunstall fan, but I have to admit her version of John Farnham's "You're The Voice" was really good, as was Sophie Ellis-Bextor doing "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie" by Baccara.

The full line-up (in case you missed it) was:

The Feeling doing "Video Killed The Radio Star" (originally by The Buggles)
KT Tunstall doing "You're The Voice" (John Farnham)
Craig David doing "If You Let Me Stay" (Terrence Trent D'Arby)
Kelly Osbourne doing "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" (gravel-voiced Bonnie Tyler)
Amy MacDonald doing "Sweet Caroline" (Neil Diamond)
The Diamond Hoo Ha Men (Gaz & Danny from Supergrass) doing "Beat It" (Michael Jackson)
Sophie Ellis-Bextor doing "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie" (Baccara)
Romeo & Angela from The Magic Numbers doing "Islands In The Stream" (Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton) - possibly my favourite cover of all.

All in all, utterly cheese-tastic!

Did bugger all yesterday.

In the shop working today.

And that's it, really.

I WON!!!!

..... £9

Just Chillin'

That's what the bottle of wine I bought to have (it IS only a baby bottle!) while I have my tea is doing just now... and that's why I'm killing time here in the meantime...

Was in the shop working today - it was kinda average... not busy, not quiet... just steady. The weather's been really odd today - sunny periods, and then real belters of rainy, sleety showers, so we did get some folk in when they were on.

Then a visit down to see my brother, and then home, via the supermarket... where I have reached new levels of laziness... I like hot pancakes, and I thought I was being really lazy buying those bottles of pancake mix that you add milk to and shake before cooking, instead of making proper pancake batter... but I've gone a step further...

Tonight I bought a packet of (oh, the shame) Auntie Betty's FROZEN pancakes! Bung them in the microwave for a minute or so, and Robert's your mother's brother!

I'll tell you the morn if they're any good.

And now I'm offski coz my wine should be sufficiently cold, and I'm going to stick my fajitas in the oven, and settle down to watch at least a bit of the dvd of the BBC adaptation of "Jane Eyre" that I bought cheap from Woolies earlier (watched it when it was on, and loved it... and the actor that played Rochester is pretty damned hot!).

Oh, and going to check if I'm a millionaire on the Lottery. If not, I'll probably see you tomorrow... If you haven't heard from me by this time next week, I'll be sunning myself on my private yacht somewhere that's a damn sight hotter than Orkney!

(Beep)ing Hell!

Been at work today all alone, up at the store, from (beep) 8o'clock this morning... and it's been one of those days where it's been busy but not very productive in the cash sale stakes (beep). I've reeled off 50+ metres of cable - 12 metres of which was 10mm² twin & earth - and everyone who came in was asking for (beep) weird and wonderful things.... "Got any grommets?"... "I'm needing glands"... "Clips"... - or, if it was something simple, we didn't have it in stock!

(Beep) My brother picked me up after work, and we had a quick run round the supermarket for one or two things each of us forgot last night - and I've got (beep) popcorn coz I'm planning to watch a DVD in a bit... "Fantastic Four - The Rise Of The Silver Surfer". Oh, yes - I can actually WATCH telly again... I got some muscle (beep) on Thursday night, and my TV from up here is now down in the living room - it's a bit of a comedown, because it's only a 24" at most, and the other one was a 28" widescreen, but at least it's a TV, and it WORKS... and there's no annoying loud buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz with it like my other one (which has a transformer buzz or something - crap SHARP telly) (beep).

Well, did you win a share of the £96million last night? I didn't... hence the fact I was at work today, and I'm here tonight, and not sunning myself and sipping champagne on my own (beep) private yacht. Still, there's always tonight - £6million would do to start with...

The rest of the week's not been that exciting - just me and Flunky at work (beep), except when I've been down at the shop (mainly just dinnertimes).

Oh! I'm actually socialising next weekend... after my 5 hour marathon exam on Friday, I'm going along an ex-colleague who's up for the weekend and having tea with her and another girl I worked with... and they've got the wine in already! And then (after a day off on Saturday... yippee! (beep)), Saturday night the 3 of us and another couple of folks are going out for a drink... so my poor liver will be taking a battering for the first time in ages - probably nearly a year. I'm a bit worried how out of practice I am - these days one of those Bacardi Breezer-type things (beep) usually lasts me two nights because I fall asleep before it's done the first night. So, in a minute, I'm going downstairs for some spring rolls and a can of wine (yes, a can... Lidl had them last night, so I thought I'd give them a try - a semi-sparkling white wine in a can). I'll report back tomorrow on what they tasted like, and if I fell asleep before I drank the whole of (beep) the first.

Right, I'm buggering off now... What's that? (beep)... "What's the beep, Ally?"... Well, when the muscle connected up the telly to the Sky dish, etc downstairs, he didn't get the DVD player working, so my brother came in tonight after the supermarket to set it up so I could watch my film... and as he was leaving, he reached up in the hallway, and pushed the button on the smoke alarm, setting it off, and scaring the crap out of poor Harriet. And then the stupid smoke alarm's spent the last 10 - 15 minutes after he left going "beep" every couple of minutes. Not that he heard... he'd legged it out the door going "It'll stop eventually"!

Actually... I think it might have... but don't tell him that!