What a crazy start to the month it has been. There have been more punting opportunities than you could shake a stick at and plenty of wacky stuff happening around Sydney. The Presidential race is now over, with Romney losing to Obama (even though he had more than a million more votes than Obama - the US electoral system...go figure!), although he definitely has his work cut out for him with Hurricane Sandy wreaking havoc on the international gateway city of New York and its surrounding states/areas. I saw someone on facebook said the other day 'Imagine if Gangnam Style was actually a rain dance and we brought Hurricane Sandy on ourselves?!'. Rather insensitive but at the same time a clear reflection on the viral nature of pop culture in today's world. Psy even came to Sydney, where our local teen rent a crowd went nuts for him, Gangnam styling all over Martin Place...is Psy involved with some sort of conspiracy rain-dance jive? I don't think so, besides its all sunny here!
We have also had the Melbourne Cup, the race which stops the nation - or more precisely Victoria (who have somehow managed to squeeze another public holiday out of an equine day out), where the favourites to win did nothing of the sort "I backed Green Moon for the win...yeehaa!", said no one ever.
I definitely think that the Melbourne Cup did suffer (in terms of revenue) from the Oz Lotto Australian record $100 million draw. It was on the same day, and just outside of our offices here in Martin Place we had the TAB pop up betting tent and the big screen as well as the kiosk news agents both filled with lines 10-15 people deep. What recession? Even on the morning shows the presenters were talking about what they were going to do with their $100 mil, how they were going on holidays, giving money to family to open up a new store, etc. I think the winnings were shared for it, but there was some syndicate of scores of people from around the eastern seaboard that got a good slice of the $100 mil. Good on them!
So, great start to the month, and lets keep the excitement rolling! By the way; I heard that Brad and Angelina (nee Brangenila) may be moving to Sydney to shoot a film here. Now that's exciting (more so than Brad's recent foray into designer furniture.
