Books
Creative Commons
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Flare
Aug
8
As you may know I am, well, a bit of a sap. I cry at most movies and TV shows, mobile phone commercials, songs, books, the sight of a plastic bag blowing in the wind (well, may be not so much that but you get the picture).
Today on the luckiest day of the year the following things have brought tears to my eyes: – fire, doctors, numbers and Microsoft.
We’ll work backwards.
Microsoft.
I have been getting emails from a couple of people who use Internet Explorer recently saying that this blog doesn’t work for them at all recently. Not being sure if it is me or IE I am putting the template back to July’s so yes the purple is returning for the weekend as a test. Nothing else has been changed here and the blue template is the same type as the purple one but, hey, I’m willing to try anything to please my readers! I am, of course, fully recommending switching to another browser but if this doesn’t work it does give me the perfect excuse to totally overhaul the blog… Sorry, just had kittens at the thought of trying to find a new template that pleases me!
Numbers
No, not the show with the delicious David Krumholtz (oh, belated congratulations on your engagement, Mr Universe!) but more the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 type. The Euromillions jackpot was at just over £31million today and with this being the luckiest day of the year I thought, heh, what the hell – let’s give it a go. Now, whenever I play the National Lottery which yes I have a ticket for tomorrow I do 3 lines – 3, 10, 11, 13, 21, 42 (except the 3 they are all X-File related and I’ve hand these since the Lottery began) & 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 (yes, I know!) & a random ‘lucky dip’. I know that statistically I have no greater chance of winning by sticking with the same numbers but it saves me trying to come up with new ones each time.
I have never played the EuroMillion’s game before and so didn’t have numbers ready for this. I decided to go with the ‘X-file’ numbers (splitting the 42 into 4 and 2) and a lucky dip. I won nothing. Had I put the ‘Lost’ numbers down I would have won a massive £19.00 – oh yes, rolling in the cash but, no, I decided to go with old faithful’s! That’s 19 quid I could be spending on things I don’t need! Oh, well, roll on tomorrow.
Doctors
I went for, what should have been, my post-PCOS/Gynae GP appointment today. Of course, because my PCOS appointment has been postponed it was more a check up. My lovely doctor who restored my faith in the NHS and has put up with my whiny crap for the past 8 months is going on maternity leave until March so I will be seeing another GP. And the nightmare starts again. Settling in and trusting a new doctor… I see the new one for the first time on the 25th. Here we go again. It was quite emotional for me as I left her office – I mean, serioulsy, what if she decides she likes being a Mum over being a GP and takes more time off… what if she never comes back?! I know, it’s selfish… but… well… y’know?!
Fire
6 years ago Manchester held the Commonwealth Games. All was fine until the last bit of the closing ceremony when we showed just how much as a nation we can screw things up by letting some terrible DJ take over at the end instead of something classy. In four years time London holds the Olympic Games and we will be attempting to impress the world. Dear London2012 Organisers – don’t make the same mistakes Manchester did. Big orchestral numbers that pull at the heart strings work well. Proof of this was the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Games.
Now, I know we are all supposed to boycotting these games but I am a a sucker for the Olympics – the whole ‘One World, One Dream’, all together in peace and competition schtick. I love the fact that sports that don’t get any airtime become must sees because there is the possibility that we might win a shiny bit of metal (and an ‘in your face’ to the sporty nations). And I love big shows. And they don’t get much bigger than the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. Now, granted, because I only got 90minutes sleep last night I was tired and slept through the first 3 hours I can’t comment on most of it but I saw the bit I love to see – the lighting of the Olympic Flame. My favourite (up to today) was Barcelona’s in 1992 with the Flaming Arrow
It’s jsut such a moment of high drama it makes you forget all about the politics and the sport and all the rest of the bollocks that surrounds it. It’s just pure emotion.
And China did not disappoint. The whole running through the air round the edge of the stadium and the music and everything -lump in my throat, tears flowing down my face. Beautiful. Now, I would love to show those of you who did not see it but I can’t find a video of it anywhere. (Please tell me if you do and I’ll pop it up here)
Now I just have to hope we do the business at the Handover Ceremony in 2 weeks… and then we have 4 years to come up with something just as awe inspiring.
See. Total sap.
7 Responses to “Brought To Tears”
Leave a Reply
August 9th, 2008 at 3:04 am
[...] Original post by Out Of My Tree [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 5:11 am
You would totally hate me because I’m such a cynic who scoffs at all of those things that make people cry.
Avitables last blog post..Do people read blogs on Saturdays?
August 9th, 2008 at 5:29 am
A buddy and I were discussing the lottery about 20 years ago. I said I’d considered playing 1 2 3 4 5 6 because it would be easy to remember. He said *that* would likely never come up. I countered with the fact it was just as likely as any other combination.
He didn’t buy it.
I explained the 2 didn’t know the 1 came up before it or was going to come up after it … etc.
I eventually called the Statistics Department at Ohio State University and the guy there backed me up.
My buddy said he still didn’t believe it.
delmers last blog post..My Birthday
August 9th, 2008 at 11:29 am
The opening ceremony, yes it is amazing what one can do in an oppressive dictatorship with vast resources. I don’t think think we should bother trying to compete. As for the ‘one world’ peace stuff, it was a nice day to invade Georgia.
August 10th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Avitable – No, no, jealousy would pretty much rule as I wish I could stop crying at stupid things!
delmer – You would just as much be a millionaire as the person who changes their numbers every week. Your friend is probably one of those who doesn’t believe it until he’s seen it – yes? Although – extra style points for calling the uni to win an argument!
yorksdevil – Of course we should compete for many reasons but here’s two.
One – to compete! Politics and sports should never cross. The Olympics are there for the joy of sport – the sheer ‘I can do better than you’, to show the world you can do what you can do far better than anyone else. It’s fantastic that for 17 days people. The fact that, yes – while the politics plays itself out Georgia and the Russian Federation can play each other on the Beach Volleyball court (yes they both have Men’s teams in) is what the Olympics are for. I am hoping that when the Games are here in 4 years we show half the enthusiasm for it that they have. And that brings me nicely to
Two – we are hosting the games next time! How can we not compete in something we are hosting next. We want this country to shine on the world stage in four years – unabashedly and wholeheartedly supporting the coming together of nations. Forget the politics for a time and open our arms to the world. I have signed up as a volunteer for the 2012 games and can’t wait to be part of the experience. Come out from under the rain cloud and sign up too!
August 10th, 2008 at 12:56 am
HA, HA! I just realised what happened there – When I wrote we shouldn’t compete, I meant in an opening ceremony peeing contest, not that our athletes shouldn’t compete in the games. I think it was a terrible decision to give the games to Beijing in exchange for some empty promises about freedoms. They could hardly decide at the last minute to stage the games elsewhere because commitments hadn’t been fulfilled. None of that is the athletes’ fault. I don’t see why they should be expected to miss what could be the biggest event of their career because the organisers screwed up and gave the games to the wrong country.
August 10th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
yorksdevil – let’s just hope and pray that the IOC are not regretting giving the 2012 games to us! How on earth are we as a nation going to get the enthusiasm going? Everyone should try and go to their local handover ceremony event on 24th August – let’s get some excitement going!