That’s it, your time is up for 2006. Finish the sentence you’re on and then leave quietly. Don’t take your exam paper from the room.

For me, it ended with a bit of scare this morning as my dog got sick really sick (spewey), stopped moving and eating and looked on the edge of death. We suspect it was poisoning from something he would have eaten at the beach yesterday. He seems to be on the recovery this afternoon, and just now I heard him bark again for the first time, which is a good sign.

With only some pov 9pm fireworks in town tonight, I suspect I’ll still be at Greg’s when the last minute has finished ticking.

I ventured the post-Boxing Day sales today. I did the necessary returns, but I also stopped by OfficeWorks to pick up a laser printer for only $99 (down from $220).

After one of my university lecturers once handed back an essay with something like “You’re essay is better than your printer” written on it, I knew I’d have to get a laser printer eventually. I liked the benefits they hold: super fast printing, clean prints that can realistically be put on both sides of the paper, particularly useful when printing sheet music. The cost of the toner and drums can be a bit scary, but a quick check to eBay reveals the toner cartridges can be had for around $50 delivered.

I unpacked the box, glanced at the manual, performed the neccessary ritualistic incantations and now this thing is throwing pages at me faster than I can… well, hit Print.

It’s our annual tradition: Boxing Day at Janne-Maree and Phill’s for a board game bonanza. We have the staples like Balderdash and Taboo, the recent entries like Scene It and Outburst and the brand new games each year. I also discovered this is at least my fifth boxing day games day.

This year, between devouring the christmas leftovers, we played Articulate!, which ran like Taboo with the opposite rules: you can say any words to describe the word you must convey to your team-mates, but you can’t say “rhymes with…” or “starts with…”. It wasn’t helped by the egg-timer seemingly having a total of 9 grains of sand in it. The second game was called Ticket To Ride, and was quite an elaborate game of map domination as you establish train lines across America, having to fulfil “tickets” which are pathways between stations for points. We all loved it and revelled in the strategy and technicality of it. Thanks to Adam Foster for bringing that one to the table. He said it is also available online here.

Another great day to tuck the holiday season to bed until New Years’ Eve in a matter of days.