About 15-20 years ago Powerball or something like it had a record value. My bosses and coworkers all went in together to buy some tickets. I joined in, but it was out of fear of having everyone else win and my bosses folding up the company that motivated me to do it. That's the only time I've played the lottery.

re: Alan Rickman--on the first Tubular Bells album (a somewhat classical music album, not a soundtrack for The Exorcist) there's a part where individual instruments play the main theme, and a lovely male British voice names the instruments. The voice is only credited as Wandering Player. Later Googling revealed that Wandering Player was Alan Rickman. I always wondered if they were recording the music and the composer decided to put a narrator there, and he looked out into the corridor of the studio and yelled "Alan! Do you want to be on my record?"

Today is my Friday and my co-workers have given me a steaming pile of errors to have to fix instead of doing the work I had planned to. Billing mistakes and shipping errors from as far as 2 months back!

Grrrr

I love how people are phrasing that... "___ is reporting that Alan Rickman died". Like yeah, they are saying it, but Maybe it will turn out to be a hoax this time. I want it to be hoax this time.

Mainly because there have been some who had been claiming that it was a hoax.

I really wish Alan Rickman and David Bowie were not the exact same age as my mother.

Yeah, that's disturbing, Sophia.

I never knew that was Alan Rickman, Connie! I went through a Mike Oldfield phase in college, listened to that a lot.

They're both 10 years younger than my dad. Though I'm well aware we're into unexpected bonus years for him, he's just about to become the longest-lived member of his family in living memory. (Mom's side of the family has lots of people who made it into their 90s, so there's a decent chance she might outlive me.)

My reaction was "VENDETTA! Salt in their coffee!!! Install Windows ME on their computer!!!"

Heh. Well, one is my boss and the other is in Sales and works remotely - I see her maybe three or four times a year and she typically brings donuts. So I will not be seeking vengeance.

I really wish Alan Rickman and David Bowie were not the exact same age as my mother.

Mine, too. (Also Donald Trump, who is just 1 week older than my mom.)

My mom has the kind of unearthly DNA that makes her look younger than her actual age, much like Bowie (she's second from the right in this picture, in the red glasses [well, the only person other than me who's wearing glasses]: [link] And she's the freaking Energizer Bunny (she retired last year and, after about a month, went and got another job because she was bored; now, in addition to that job, she's getting certified to teach yoga). So I generally forget her age until something like this happens.

Cancer don't give a shit about your age.