Household Menace

There is a new menace in our household. We've had mice, in fact we got another one on the weekend, we've had snails, but now I fear that we are facing our greatest threat to feeling safe in our own home. It's pins. Yes, pins. They are all over the place. On the dining room floor, in the bathroom, in the laundry and I even found one outside the house behind the car. They are a menace and it's got to stop.

Domestic And International Discrimination

Went to the post office to send a birthday card to a friend in Japan. I had lots of loose stamps in my wallet and wanted to use them up but I can never remember the cost of international postage as I utilise it so infrequently. The charge was $1.25 for which I had stamps enough to cover. But the girl at the post office informed me that I would have to pay an extra 10% on the twenty five cents worth of stamps that I planned to use. This had me rather confused. When did this happen? It turns out that the one dollar stamp was an international stamp for which there was no GST payable but the other stamps that I had were domestic and if I used them for international postage I would have to add an extra 10% to cover the GST. Talk about ridiculous. So, I had the choice of buying 25 cents of international stamps or 27.5 cents (rounded up to 30 cents) of domestic stamps. I've never heard of this and thought that over the years have used domestc stamps for international postage without anything ever being said. GST gone crazy, if you ask me.

Closing Down Sale - Too Late

The lamp on Miky's sewing machine has gone. Filament is broken. As we were heading past a sewing shop on Saturday we left it until then to buy one. Bit of a shock to find the sewing shop was having a closing down sale but that there was nothing in the shop apart from a painter's ladder. Left that run a little too late.

Taekwondo Guests

There are a couple of new students at the Saturday taekwondo class. I found out this weekend that they come from Fukuoka. That came as a bit of a shock - why are Japanese studying a Korean martial art? They are both black belts and have come here to study. You can see that they can't understand English and look a little lost until the exercises start and they can see what they are supposed to do. Their father is a retired professor from the Fukuoka University of Technology. Number Two son, as he called him, is completing his engineering degree at university here, brave move for someone who doesn't understand the language, and can do a standing kick where his foot goes behind his head - extraordinary. Number Three son seems to have very little comprehension of English but his backwards flying kicks are amazing. Hidesaki san was more than a little surprised to discover that I have been to Fukuoka twice.

Superman Returns - The Movie

Yesterday we went to the cinema to watch Superman Returns. The cinema was almost full and we prefer it when there are only a handful of people. Yu-Jin couldn't even sit with us, which was ok as he couldn't talk to us then. The guys behind us kept talking and left the cinema once or twice to get something to eat, something that was very loud in the way of chips, etc. One of their girlfriends answered her mobile during the movie, and boy, did she get told by another patron. Rightly so. The guy next to me couldn't sit still, especially during the exciting moments of the movie, and jiggled his legs up and down. Miky thought that the guy behind her was kicking her seat but it was actually the guy next to me bouncing around and making the row of seats wobble. Makes you want to stay at home with a DVD.

The action in the movie was great and a huge improvement on the dated special effects of the original movies. Two and a half hours was too long though and Yu-Jin had a bit of trouble sitting still but his opinion of the movie was that it was "Excellent". Lois was the star of the movie, I thought, not Superman. A few twists that were unexpected and appreciated. I don't enjoy a movie that I feel that I could have written. Only scores two and a half stars out of five though.

One of the jerks who sat behind us left his wallet on the seat. I could have picked it up but thought better of it. The projectionist ran after us as we left the cinema and asked me if I was Watson. No, but I'm sure that Mr Watson feels like a bit of a dick after leaving his wallet behind. I'm afraid that he didn't deserve my help as a good samaritan but I'm sure that the cinema looked after him.