The end of a short week.

For Sure Next Week had a bye for multisport so instead we had a game of urban psychic orienteering which involves telling everyone the team is going to go for drinkies when we have a bye and then not arranging anything. I spotted Alastair and Dave and Fiona in a pub at Dickson and scored a pint, but they were really there for another reason and no one else showed so it looks like we need to practise our telepathy (or make an arrangement next time).

Go Phoenix! Go Phoenix! Go. Go. Go Phoenix!

I went to the netball double header at the Sydeny Superdome on Friday. The two Victorian teams were playing the two New South Wales teams for the inaugural Sargeant-McKinnis award in round thirteen of the Commonowealth Bank Trophy competition in front of the world’s largest netball crowd (13,463).
The first game was between Hunter Jaegers and Melbourne Kestrels sitting fifth and fourth on the ladder separated by six points in the second last round of the competition. With nothing in the balance it was a spectacular game: ten all at the first break; Jaegers up by twenty-one to twenty at half time; and by thirty-three to twenty-nine, the largest lead of the match, going into the final fifteen minutes. Then Kestrels struggled back to win forty-two to forty-four.
Then Sydney TAB Swifts, top of the table with the best attacking and defending records in the competition this year, played the current trophy holders, Melbourne Phoenix. This was fantastic. There were Australian team and squad members everywhere, not least of all in the goal circle where Australian captain Liz Ellis was playing Goal Keeper for Swifts against Australian vice-captain (and world’s best netball player) Sharelle McMahon at Goal Attack for Phoenix.
Swifts won the first quarter eleven to ten and the second quarter twelve to eleven. Both teams used their bench at half-time and Phoenix rallied in the third term to be up thirty-five to thirty-seven going into the final quarter. Swifts brought on Jane Altschwager who missed her first three shots at goal but they managed to close the gap and build the largest lead of the game. Phoenix, despite being five goals down at that point, had the crowd booing every goal they scored or penalty they received. Nevertheless they stormed back into the game and took the lead by one goal in the last minute. Swifts’ shooter and the national competition’s leading scorer, Cath Cox, on thirty-two goals at seventy-eight percent accuracy for the game, missed the goal which would draw the game and gathered her own rebound only to miss again. Phoenix won forty-seven to forty-eight. That game was so cool.

Sit, sat, sit, Saturday.

On Saturday I took the train up to Woy Woy to visit my dad. I showed him photographs from my vacation and he showed me his expanding collection of bromeliads. Then we had lunch at the bowls club and in the afternoon I gave him a few clues about using his new scanner. Then it was back to Sydney and dinner with Chris, Ian, Jo, Joe, Mikey, Nick, Penny and Trina; which was nice. Also, we caught the last few minutes of Australia defeating South Africa in the Rugby Union test in Perth as it was being projected onto the side of a building next door to the restaurant.

More of Sydney on Sunday, this time it was downtown with Andrew, Anna and Linda for a brief brunch with Anna’s friend Hiromi. Then Andrew, Linda and I dropped into Galaxy Bookshop and I left with four novels and three DVDs of Doctor Who, the complete box set of Sapphire and Steele on DVD and a boardgame called Citadels which was recommended by Andrew and Linda. We met Anna again in Abbey’s Bookshop where more bookish goodness was purchased. Then it was back to Marrickville briefly before Linda and I set off back to Canberra (via Liverpool and the Hume Highway as the entrance to the motorway still eludes me) with Ted’s old computer in the boot. Super!

The beginning of an interrupted week.

Monday night games introduced me to the well recommended Citadels which I now want to play with more then three people. I won the first game (by being the King a lot) and did poorly in the second (by trying to be all the different people at least once). Then we played a bunch of Ticket to Ride which I also want to play with more than three players to open up the double tracks and increase the amount of unintentional interference from other player’s tracks.

At work we have just about started testing the September release. This will mean daily reports of things that need fixing as we countdown to the release on 4 September. As August passes these fixes will become increasingly urgent, we would like to get any other work out of the way now so as to have resources available when time is short. This is the time a hobbit involved in running the country has decided to give us a new task which not only involves creating a new letter (so it has to be perfect first time or we'll be on A Current Affair again), it also has to be delivered before September.

Then I went on a training course for two days (which is why this entry is late).
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