Kicking Some Serious Old Lady Scrabble Butt!

I went to the local scrabble group tonight for the first time, a group of older ladies who meet once a month for a night of scrabble. I was the only bloke there but they made me very welcome and there was plenty of friendly chat and laughter.
We played three games (There were 9 people so there were 4 games going on at any one time) and I won all three of mine! Funnily enough the ladies didn't seem that bothered or interested in the scores! They were just having a good time. Mind you so was I! They had pages of 2 letter, 3 letter, 4 letter words etc, Q words without a u etc that they had downloaded off the internet! Very helpful and they were all happy to use them, consult dictionaries etc.
I scored 426 in one game, twice using all 7 letters in a word to get the 50 point bonus!
I'm home and having a very strange dialogue with The Heir; on Skype. He's talking and his voice is coming out of my computer speakers but we don't have a mic or headset yet so my side of the discussion is all typed. Makes for a weird experience but it's good to hear his voice. Considering he's been in England for over a year he hasn't lost his accent at all.
I'll get a headset soon so we can do it voice to voice. Pretty cool being able to talk across the net for "free".

I went to Bunbury this morning to see the orthopaedic surgeon who has referred me for an MRI next week to see if that shows up what the problem is.
Then Carolyn sent me on a challenging mission, to buy her a bra on special at KMart! I spent 10 minutes looking around the absolute multitude of bras, in a myriad of shapes and colours and styles and fabrics, without success! Turns out the sale doesn't start till Thursday! But the assistant manager took pity on me and allowed me to put my name down for one when they come in!

Back to Busso in time to supervise the delivery of our Commonwealth Games fish sculpture from the freight company to The Hub, a youth mentoring project in Busso that thankfully has a a large shed, big enough to accommodate a 7 metre metal fish sculpture. It needs some work to repair and refit it, paint and mount it before it goes on display in public but it was the first time I've seen it without all it's bubble wrap and I was impressed and excited, it looks good and the work on it shouldn't be too hard. I started to get pretty amped up about the project again which is good cause it's been on the back burner for a few months.

Well, The Heir has deserted me to go for a walk with his mates, it's late, I wanted to paint for a little while before I go to bed, all of which means it's time to sign off from Holt Press.

I was going to bed but then...

I was just going to blog for a minute before bed but discovered The Heir on Skype asking questions and needing me to fax him things.
I've found what he needs and will send them tomorrow.
A mate posted a message about Skype that will definitely interest any of you who are Skype users. Here it is:

[9:41:47 AM] Phil Sparrow says: Dear all. Just to let you know: Skype can detect that you have unused bandwidth on your computer, and, being a P2P program, start using your computer as a 'Super-node'. This just happened to us. Hundred's of MB of data started being routed through our account, rapidly exceeding our quotas. The solution is to go to Skype/ Tools/ Option/ Connection, and uncheck the 'use port 80 and 443'. Skype is still a great program, but super-noding is a great hassle. Google 'Skype bandwidth use' if you want more info.

Sneaky little rats!!

Went to Bunbury with Sophie this afternoon, she drove, so I could check out FoodBank, a food distribution service which we're going to utilise for The Big Brekky this year. We hung around Bunbury, shopping etc until 9 when we went to the movies to see Blood Diamond. It was very violent and pretty heavy but also an excellent film on a serious subject.

Started the day at the physio whose diagnosis of the continued swelling and pain in my ankle (injured in September) is due to a hairline fracture, and that I need to get my foot put back in a cast for two weeks!! That's a nuisance but hopefully if he's right it will mean it will properly heal and I'll regain mobility without pain, and be able to resume playing sport.
So I'm off to see the Dr in the morning and I'll be back on crutches for two weeks!!