Books, Cars, and Day Break

Well... There's a bit that happened this week.

First, I won't be able to go to the BAT this year. My car started to overheat on Monday, so I ended up going over to Triangle Auto, to get it repaired. That was fixed on Tuesday. But then, this morning, my car wouldn't start - I think it's my alternator belt - I'm PRAYING that my car will start tomorrow, and I hope that they can fix it cheap.

I did happen to manage to get up to Barnes & Noble before my car died. Managed to pick up 4 books, along with the Complete Wordbook, by Mike Baron - One of the best book on Scrabble to date.

AND - ABC has finally aired the rest of "Day Break" on line - so I'm glad to be able to finally watch the rest of the series.

A very late post....

Due to the fact that for the last 6 days, I've had the absolute WORST case of diarrhea I've ever had in my life. After last Saturday's Scrabble tournament (4W-3L... but more on that in a bit), I came home, and was feeling fine, but Sunday night - well... let's just say my ass exploded. Multiple times. And it did that for 5 DAYS! I'm on antibiotics now to help cure what ever is in my system, and yesterday I had my first NORMAL looking poo in a week. At least I'm getting better.

Onto the tournament!

I went in seeded 14th out of 20 and finished in 9th place. I'm rated at a 692, with 4 wins and 3 losses. I Bingoed in 5 out of 6 games and had my best game ever with a score of 448 points.

Here's a list of my bingos:

Game 1 - played PLANETS for 91 points on a TWS.
Game 2 - Two bingos! NAILERS for 66 and vAINEST for 77
Game 3 - Three bingos! (you see a pattern?) Phonied a bingo PELTIN(G)S for 69, FOCUsED for 83, and then I had my best play of the game - I bingoed out with ENSNAR(L)S on a TWS for77 points.
Game 4 - INcITI(N)G for 66
Game 5 - D(E)FICITs for 61
Game 7 - HuNTERS for 74

All in all an excellent tournament. The next one is on June 9th, and I'm planning on attending that one as well.

In other news, I finally - after years of waiting - bought a real MP3 player. It's a Creative Labs Zen Vision:M 30 GB mp3 player. But it also playes Movies, Music and photos as well. This little piece of equipment has a TON of features.

It has a built in radio, microphone to do dictation with, it can import contact info from Outlook, you can use your own images as wallpaper. It plays Movies (Divx, Xvid, MPG and AVI - and if the format isn't compatible, it'll convert it so it is), music (which I already have a bunch on there), and photo slide shows. 250 bucks at Walmart, and it's quite the little package. My only concern is that the touch pad you use to navigate with is very sensitive - make for selecting what you want to do a bit frustrating at times. But other than that - a great mp3 player.

Ready! Aim! Fire!

Not a weapon, but a camera. A Digital Camera to be exact.

I bought a HP Photoshare digicam for 99 bucks up at Wally World last night. Along with a camera case, rechargeable batteries, and a 1GB memory stick, I spent about 140 bucks all together. I worked 10 hours of OT at work, so I could afford it. I also got my tripod back from Heather.

In Scrabble News – I registered for a 7 Game tournament next Saturday. Sharon and I are gonna carpool down to Dover NH, and I hope to do well against the novice group.

Coolest. Idea. Ever.

I got an awesome idea yesterday.

I’ve looking to purchase a round shoulder bag to carry my Scrabble board around. SamTimer.com sells round board carrier for $29.99+5.00 s&h. Looking at the pictures , I realized that the board carrier is basically a cymbal case. You know, like for a drum set.

So I strolled into “Music Maniac”, and look at the prices for cymbal cases. $19.99!

So basically, I bought a Scrabble bag for 20 bucks. I’m loving it.

Sticker Shock from Hell!!!

I never had sticker shock like that before.

Last week, I received my e-bill from CMP, and was shocked to see my electric bill went up from 40 dollars to 170! Yeah 170! Now I realize that 30 of that was from my old apartment and 20 was for relocating service, but even still… that means my bill was really about 110 bucks!

So basically I started doing some research. First thing I did was check to see what my refrigerator was set at, and it was set to 9 – the coldest setting possible. So I turned that down. I also realized that my water was scalding hot. So I called my landlord and asked him to check my water heater – it was set to 150 degrees! At least 50 degrees warmer that it should have been – and – it’s not insulated. So he turned the temp down on that to around 95-100 degrees, and I’ll be order a insulation kit to insulate it next month. Hopefully the steps I’ve taken will drop my electric bill. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to see if I can get an electrician in here to test the wiring.

What else is going on… Won another Scrabble game against my club director – managed to outsmart her a couple of times to win.

I’m starting a weekly trivia contest at work, with prizes at the end of NEXT year – yep 52 weeks of trivia.

Final Moving Update.. and other Stuff!

Well, I finally got my internet up and running at my new apartment (although I'm typing this at my friend's place). I'm moved in and unpacked - with the exception of at 8 boxes (I need to get some bookcases for the place).

It's got 2 bedrooms (I'm using one as an actual bedroom, and the other one as a computer room/library), and a living room (I'll be able to put a surround sound system in within a few months), a kitchenette (with NO counter space), and a full bathroom (only downside there is that the ceiling is slanted, so I've actually hit my head on the ceiling). But other than that, I absolutely LOVE my new place. I actually have room to walk around in, and it'll be nice to be able to have friends over and have ROOM for them as well.

In other news, the whole internet thing was a pain in the ass. Oxford Network managed to hook up my phone easily, but had a hell of a time running the CAT5 network cable from the box in the basement up to the 3rd floor. I was offline for about 2 weeks (tons of e-mail to catch up on), but I'm finally online again.

In the SCRABBLE world, I had 2 horrible weeks for games. in 3 weeks I had a 2 wins/4 losses record. I don't like that at all. I'm actually going to start creating my own study aides, using index cards. I'll probably have the SATINE, SATIRE, and SALINE stems, and a bunch of 7-letter high probability bingoes as well. I'm determined to play well in next year's Boston Area Tournament, so I really need to start studying for it now, so I'm prepared for it. I want to bat at least a .650 next year.

I'm really starting to become a self-described "word freak", looking at words and trying to anagram them, using LexPert and Zyzzyva to increase my knowledge and help retain words.

So basically, it's been words and work, work and words... And I'm pretty happy with that...

HERE'S A MUPPET NEWSFLASH!

Well, a lot has been happening lately.

FINALLY joined the NSA – National Scrabble Association. I’m currently ranked 2458th in the US.

Beat my Club Director Sharon in a standard game! Last Sunday, I finished with 2 wins – 1 loss, and I bingoed twice in each game. And the last game was my highest scoring club game ever – 397 points.

Chuck and I joined up over at Planet Fitness. We’ve been going 3 nights a week, using the treadmills, weight equipment and trying to get back into shape. Amazingly, I can leg press 160 pounds, lateral pull 90 and work up a really good sweat. My arms are killing me tonight, but I have to keep reminding myself that it’ll all be worth it in the long run.

Charlotte is finally completely moved into her new apartment. It took 2 weeks (and MANY trips in my car) but it’s done. And as a thank you, she gave me Trivial Pursuit – The Vintage Years. Another TP game to add to my growing collection.

Vacation in 6 days! Taking a week off, and an extra day because of Labor Day, so I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m hoping to pay ahead on my rent for the next 8 weeks, so I can save up some money for a trip to Massachusetts. I can pay 297 every two weeks, and I’ll be golden.

Finally picked up MacGyver Season 2, 9 Samurai Movies, the complete Victory at Sea documentaries, Superman, and Eddie Murphy’s Raw. Lotsa viewing.

So far so good – I hope to update this more regularly, so stay tuned.