Be Excellent To Each Other

My colleague found one of these on the street yesterday, still in its box. It's a 500GB portable media centre with wifi, so you can watch videos on your tablet or phone that are stored on this little rechargable box. It works fine, the spawny fuck.

Which got me to thinking: What lucky things have happened to you?

I won a phone-in competition on Xfm a few months back for free tickets to see Frank Turner and Miles Kane, amongst others. Some of you may not consider this 'lucky', but meh, t'was a good night.

I found a brand new iPod on the floor once, still in it's box. It was an 8gb model if I remember correctly? That was lucky.

I once entered two competitions in the magazine section of whatever Sunday papers the family was reading back when I was 7 or so, a week apart. Won both of them - a chemistry set and a scalextric.

Pretty sure that's about it.

Oh, I won a couple of competitions too. It was "Big Comic Fortnightly" if I remember correctly and like Cras, I won twice in a row.

They were battery operated robots that I won.

I also won a construction set of something on a competition on Nickelodeon.

Sounds ace! I've been listening to Frank almost daily since last Autumn; would love to hear him live.

I won a signed-by-the-author copy of Stanley Bagshaw and the 22-Ton Whale in an art competition in Year 8 at school.

I "won" tickets to the Xbox 360 launch in that there America. Had to pay for own transport and accommodation but was still a belting time.

And I got to touch up Juliette Lewis *

Admittedly the best part of it was the few days me and a mate spent in LA but the event was still worth attending - apart from the countdown at the end to a load of wagons opening.

Oh and I sold the 360 I bought and some crappy freebies for silly money on eBay when I got back. And I got a special cheevo that makes no-one ever jealous.

* her ankle mainly during a stage dive at The Troubadour but still eh?

Which cheevo? Give me a chance to get jealous!

VIP Motherfuckers , VIP.

Now all you need to do is buy a day one XB1 console and get that achievement also

Frank's fantasic! I've seen him live a few times now. Though that night, it turned out, was a charity event - so the profits from ticket sales went straight to charity. I did feel a bit of a bastard going for free, but dammit, I won those tickets fair and square!

Another lucky thing: a few years ago I went to my local Halfords immediately after work to buy a bike. It was only a relatively cheap one (£250) to be getting about with, but I didn't have much cash back then either, so went to buy it on credit. The credit check cleared and all was approved, but the cashier guy couldn't get it to go through the till. He asked me nicely to come back the next day to speak to his manager.

So I went back the next day before work and the manager apologised profusely. We went through everything and I'd definitely been cleared for the credit and all was approved, but it still wouldn't go through the till. So he told me not to worry, it was just a formality, take the bike, get to work, have a nice time and he'd sort it all out in my absence.

About 9 months later, I was going through my bank statements when I suddenly noticed that Halfords hadn't taken a single payment. They still haven't. I got my bike for free!

My wife won a ride-along with the Mercedes Silver Arrow display team - she sat in the passenger seat of an AMG whilst they were donutting and power sliding and skidding around the wet skid track at Mercedes Benz World, which was pretty cool.

I once won a huge jar of sweets in "Guess the number of sweets in the jar" compo. Ate myself sick, I did.

I failed my second year of university setting up a series of events leading to where I am now. Including every year between 1995 and 2004 being better than the preceding one.

Malc

On a whim one day, after a recommendation, I once signed up on an internet forum, and met some geeks. Turns out they make up most of the most important people in my life right now. That was pretty lucky. They could have all been proper nutters.

I arrived back at work after a couple of days off and was asked if i wanted to go to Dubai on a fam trip. 4 days which included meals in nice hotels, a desert safari, trip to the top of the Burj Khalifa and wild wadi water park and generally being shown around the place like royalty. It had been offered to my mate first who thought hed lost his passport so wouldn't have time to get one organised.

His folks told him it was in their safe. While I was there

Fucking hell, are you E'd up?

Hands off Zardoz, he didn't mean you... He clearly meant me.

Where is this forum? Sounds cool.

World of Stuart. It's dead now.

Get back to your spreadsheet, drummerboy. Or your wife!

Just you wait till she hears about this! She won't be happy... Oh no. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes after she's told me off for talking to strangers.

Fucking HELL.

He's safe to say that now that Myp has gone.

I am The Luckiest.

Longer than you think, that song!

I've had a pretty jammy day today. Got taken by a mate to a day at Jaguar in Castle Bromwich (I think). Did a factory tour in the morning, had a nice lunch and this afternoon I got to terrorise the locals on the A38 in the following.

XF-S 3.0 V6 twin turbo diesel. Nicely potent, very refined, quite chuckable.
F-Type V6S. Fucking hell this car is awesome. Ride is actually far less jarring than a lot of the reviews make out and is actually quite pleasant. Handles like nothing I've driven recently and pretty bloody fast, though I did monster another guy in this when I was in the XF-R
XJ 3.0 V6 twin turbo diesel. Very nice.
XF-R Fuck me, what a weapon, but nicely refined as well.
XKR-S convertible. This thing is fucking awesome and makes an absolute racket like a Nascar.
F-Type V8S. Like the V6 but mind bendingly fast.

I felt like a six year given keys to the toy shop!

Awesome. You are indeed a lucky bugger!

I went through a lucky few weeks of finding money on the floor whenever I was out with my chum Ian. Never much, a fiver or a tenner here and there (I think 20 was the most). It's never happened like that before or since, but the excellent part was how jelly he got.

But reading this thread, I've not been anywhere near as lucky. Finding ipods and hard drives! The luck! I once found a 4gig SD card.

Any interesting stuff on it?

I had really hoped so, but no. Some really awfully blurry pics of a family. Some had Mario hats superimposed, I wonder if it came from a kid's Nintendo DSi / 3DS. One of the family was dressed in church-garb, like a vicar or something (I'm not that familiar with the proper terms).

I got the chance to go to the UK premier of the first Michael Bay Transformers film, but didn't go. Because I literally had no money at the time, let alone enough to get to London.

Still haven't seen that film, or the sequels. I doubt I'm missing much.

The first one is great.

Wow. That *is* awesome. I'd love to try the new F-Type in particular, most especially back-to-back and in different flavours as you have done mate. What a fab day that must've been.

I walked into this thread to say I found £20 in the street once lol.
Er.

FTFY

It's right up there with The Expendables for me.

Both equally terrible?

I once saw a chap drop a couple of £20 notes in the street. I picked them up and chased after him. I called out 'excuse me!' And he looked around to look at be but didn't stop, so I called out 'excuse me! You've dropp-' but he called back 'f*ck off' which kind of stopped me in my tracks. I'd come to a stop outside HMV, where an oldish lady who'd seen what was in my outstretched hand as I chased after him said 'he deserves to lose that, you should treat yourself to something nice.'

I don't know where he went, disappeared into the busy crowd whilst the oldish lady spoke to me, I guess. Oh well, rude man, I bought a handbag.

...WTF??

What an *arse*!

My Brother in Law has an F-Type. S'alright.

I like his car more though.

You really are turning australian aren't you.

Fuckin oath

The first European Football match I ever went to was the Champions League Final between Liverpool and AC Milan in 2005.

A wealthy relative bought tickets just because he wanted to go to a Champs League final. They were corporate tickets so we weren't with the Liverpool fans but right in line with the goal where AC Milan scored all their goals in the first half, Liverpool scored all their goals in the second half and where the penalty shoot out took place.

I was bombarded with text messages at half time saying either "HA HA HA HA" or "unlucky"

Quite the reverse.

I found a DS flash card whilst sweeping down the flats at work last year, it was a proper R4 but didn't come with any added memory card. I had an 1 Gig SD card indoors that I'd also found and added the requisite firmware and the bastard works, apart form that nothing much.

My uncle was an electrician and he found a massive (and I mean MASSIVE) box of scalextric in a flat once. I had the best track ever that went round the entire length of my loft several times.

That was lucky.

On the other hand, he also found a guy who had hung himself in a flat so I guess that cancels out the luck.

Did he go in your loft as well?

I assumed at the time (and can only really suppose it still now) that he perhaps thought me to be one of those charity collectors you see in tankards trying to sign you up to various causes. Not that I was dressed in a tabard or anything, but there were sometimes a few collectors in that area. No way of knowing, obviously, but it's the only thing I can think of that would make someone react that way. He was well dressed in a suit, not the sort you imagine swearing in the street.

I wear a suit, and am moderately constantly swearing in the street.

Not usually at young ladies waving money at me, mind.

Wash your mouth out.