Adrenalin rush

Even though Milja and Dan are thousands of miles away from here, we can still have nice evenings together - thanks to Skype.

Last night I told them I was thinking of buying one of the older Nintendo game systems for a 10-year-old boy who lives in the local squatter camp. His family lost everything in the fire a year ago, and so all the money they get is saved for buying furniture and other essential things for the house, and can't be used for extra things such as toys. With about R500 going to the council tax each month, R500 to the 'mortgage' and R1400 for the kids' schooling, I can't understand how the family even has money for food, let alone furniture.

Milja and Dan said they'd check what they could find on eBay. They immediately found one of the original GameBoys, with a carry case, for £2.50. Bargain! Oh, but there was only 1 minute left to bid... hurry... ...we didn't bid for it in time :(

We then looked for a more up-to-date console. At this point Milja and Dan agreed on skipping the film they had planned on going to see, and we switched from instant messaging to talking live via the computers.

Milja and Dan kept finding good deals. We concentrated on the ones that had a deadline within a half an hour or so. We agreed on the highest bid together, and Milja and Dan found the items and did the actual bidding. At first we counted minutes, then seconds, and waited for until almost the very end before Dan placed the bids. We lost several deals. One of the ones we lost was a gameboy colour with twelve games (starting bid £29.99, went for £36). We didn't feel so bad about this particular loss, though, as the buyer was 'HomeAloneMum'. We all felt sorry for her, and thought she deserved the 12 games :D

Oh - the excitement and the adrenalin rush! Finally, we did it! We were the highest bidders on a set of: GameBoy advance (in blue), 4 games and a data cable (starting bid £15, went for £19).