Is Anthony One Of The Untouchables?

You know, Anthony Callea, the Australian Idol contestant who has never been in the bottom three. Is he untouchable? Or does he just look like one of the Untouchables?

Yes, that was a wog joke.

Yu-Jin Has A Bank Account

Miky had a fitting last night and so I had to pick Yu-Jin up from kindy. Ok, I picked him up but left his bag and lunchbox there. I am a bit of a newbie as I've not picked him up before.

On the agenda was a bank account for the young man. He had a huge money tin that I had been putting change and any birthday/Christmas money that he received. I rang the bank from work to ask if the branch I wanted to attend had a coin counting machine. I was assured that that was the case and the woman opened an account by taking our details. I just had to walk into the bank basically and deposit the money. So I took Yu-Jin, his money tin and a can opener with me.

We arrived about 3:20 pm and promptly found out coin counting machines haven't been in use for years. I would have to bag all of the coins myself. Scheisse. So for the next 30 minutes I feverishly piled up coins and bagged them. I managed to get through about three-quarters of the tin in that time. There was a little girl waiting with her parents near where we were counting the money and so Yu-Jin played with her and read her some books.

Now for the outstanding totals. There was $165 in notes and my counting totalled $450. So, Yu-Jin has $615 in his bank account. Not bad for four years of saving change! (note: back at home I counted the rest of the change and it totalled $740.90)

When we finally got to do the paperwork Yu-Jin was so excited about the swivel chair that he spent a bit of time just spinning around. There is no social hierarchy with this kid. He talks to everybody as though they are an equal.

"Do you know, I get pocket money?" he asked the teller.
"Do you clean your room?" she asked.
"Sometimes."
"Do you pack away your toys?"
"Sometimes."

At least he is honest. Then the teller said something about signing my name and Yu-Jin piped up with "His name is Mark Ham." Who says you need 100 points of identification to open a bank account? Just take Yu-Jin with you.

But probably the funniest thing to come out of his mouth was, "Do you know, my daddy didn't brush his teeth?"
"Did his teeth fall out?"
With a puzzled look on his face he replied with, "Not really."

There was just no shutting this kid up. All he wanted to do was talk.

He fell asleep in the car on the way home. So I got to watch nearly all of the Channel Ten news from 5:15 pm. Yu-Jin was still asleep when I went to bed after 10 pm. I believe that he got up after 11, had some tea and then Miky put a video, Bionicles, for him to watch. About 1:30 am he burst into our room to tell mum about the numbers on the video. It had reached the end of the tape and was rewinding by itself. I'm not too sure about how he will get up this morning.

Eight More Barrow Loads

On Sunday we grabbed eight more wheelbarrow loads of woodchips from across the road. Our front garden looks fabbo now. I'll have to take some pics. I did a bit of wheelbarrow racing with Yu-Jin inside. He loved it.

For those of you statistically minded - I have a total of 38 barrow loads of woodchips at my place. At an average of 25 shovel fulls per barrow that makes 950 shovels. No wonder my back is a bit sore.

Sprinkler Time

It's getting to be a dry time of year and so I put the sprinklers on. We are only allowed to water with reticulation two times a week and we have set days depending upon our house number. Not a bad idea I must say.

There's always one sprinkler that doesn't want to play the game. Out the front one failed to pop up. I took a screwdriver out to lever it up. That only popped the top. Amid trying to screw the sprayer back in and trying to pop it up, I got soaked. That was rather good fun though. No more dramas with the sprinklers. Maybe my grass will live. I could never call it lawn though.