The sound of lawnmowers about the nation...

So the rain has stopped.
My brother has left home, and moved to a place in Rockhampton near the school he is now teaching at.
So along with many other Queenslanders I spent this afternoon mowing the lawn.

In other news my Visa application is making progress (yes, I am bgoing overseas - pay attention). I now need to organise some flights, if only Singapore Airlines would hurry up and get their prices up already. Apparently no-one is flying from Australia to Osaka on May 14th to arrive before 6pm. I either get there on the 13th, or possibly try an overnighter in Hong Kong. S. Air may have a direct arriving around 4pm, so I'm gunning for its availability.

Other things on my checklist

• IDP (International Drivers Permit) $20 and a visit to my local RACQ is all it takes apparently
• Luggage. Sydney baggage handlers broke the handle off my only large-ish suitcase last year
• A phrasebook. I'm going to start upping my Japanese vocabularly starting next week. I thought I had stored some old schoolbooks in my drawers, but apart from basic character sheets of hiragan and katakana, I found nada.
• A few necessary items of apparel (especially socks and jocks - oh and shirts, everyone is telling me I won't be able to get shirts in Japan)
  
• A credit card, but it'is still on the maybe list
  

Hopefully most of those (except the IDP) will be sorted in the next week-month.

The Phantom mysteriously got raves in my local TV program as "one of teh better comic-film transitions" -- nu-uh -- it is crap. Utter shite. The attempts to portray South East Asia as an imaginary African jungle is pathetic. What the hell are colonials doing in black-run Bengalla (hell, where are the Black people?). ANd Kit doesn't wear sunglasses in the city - NOONE looks into the eyes of the Ghost and lives, and the sunglasses he does wear momentarily are totally uncool and un-Phantom. The only comic-film transition worth watching was The Shadow. It has a globe conquering Mongol with telekinesis, and an atom bomb. Who knows ...The Shadow knows.

PS - Seismology in Person