On his last visit, Jason gave us all of his remaining Amiga gear for $50. Included were two Amiga 500s that looked very dirty and unloved. I assumed that they would be useful for parts only. On Friday morning, however, I decided to see if they would boot up. One did! And its disk-drive was working too. So I cleaned up the case and Joe and I then had a 5th working Amiga in our collection, which was rather exciting. To obtain another Amiga these days was a considerable improbability. I guess I should sell a couple of them. We are only using one at the moment.
Earlier in the week I had decided to do my trust tax return on Friday. My personal return was done by an agent and went in last December. Agents all freak out if you ask them to do a trust return however. I have no idea why but they either refuse point blank or ask for big money. Yet my return is of the simplest. All it does is hold company shares. You have just got to add up two columns of numbers basically. So out of necessity I do my own trust tax return. Like everybody else, however, I hate doing tax returns so I had put off doing it. I bit the bullet on Friday, however, and it only took me about half an hour
I then wanted to print out a brief letter to go with it and found that my printer was out of ink. I did have a spare ink cartridge to hand but putting it in was a challenge -- but I managed it.
I then decided I should get another cartridge immediately for future use. Officeworks is near to where I live so that was easy. I got the cartridge and then lined up to pay for it. There were a couple of people ahead of me but there were NO cashiers in sight. I thought they would soon turn up -- but none did.
After giving it some time however, I decided to be Stentor. In ancient Greece, Stentor was the town crier of Athens. And he had a VERY loud voice. The Athenians didn't have a public address system but they did have Stentor, which was just about as good. I am not as good a Stentor as Michael Darby but I can be a pretty good Stentor nonetheless. So I said in my best Stentorian voice "Where are all the cashiers?" The shop was electrified. Within one minute there were two cashiers there and after another minute three. People hate loud voices so they rush to make sure I won't do it again.
So even buying an ink cartridge can have its dramas.
Then that night I shouted Jill and Lewis a dinner at one of our local Japanese restaurants. It was a long delayed birthday dinner. I had put it off due to a string of minor illnesses I had had.
And even there there was a bit of a drama. I had brought along a bottle of champagne and asked for glasses to drink it with. That caused consternation. At first they thought they didn't have any but when the lady boss was consulted a set of them were found. They then had to wash and polish them but we got our glasses eventually.
Jill and Anne are both great travel enthusiasts so Jill told Anne all about her trip to Dubai and Anne told Jill about her trip to Finland and the Arctic. Lewis and I just talked politics as usual. I told them all about my recent Stentor performance and that gave some amusement.
There were four Bento boxes on the menu so I ordered them all. So that made an interesting and substantial dinner for each of us. I chose the box with the curry but made rather a mess of eating it. Japanese curry comes in the form of a thick liquid into which you dip stuff. So I think you can see the perils of that. But at least I ate my rice. The ladies treated their beautifully prepared rice as an afterthought. The Japanese must wonder at that
I think I was the most unfit person there. Old men go through 4 stages: Spry, active, mobile and breathing. I am on the wrong end of mobile.
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