The Polish Nation Intellectual Forum met and imbibed at our usual spot, Uli's, for an evening of problem solving and various highfalutin discussions about various and random topics. One problem we're particularly keen to avoid is the arrival of the owner himself, who has chewed our ear off on various other occasions. We thought we'd missed big Uli this year as he usually comes to "check on his troops" at Chinese New Year. This year the big bear was a little late, yet mercifully enough for us, he had to go off and practice for a strange card game he was to be involved in the following night. Well meaning, the big man currently runs another restaurant in Seattle, which keeps him away from Taipei most of the year. A veteran of the Taipei expat community, his stories are highly entertaining and informative for the first 30 minutes or so, but as his beer intake mounts, it becomes impossible to even get a word in edgeways! We wished him the best for the cards and with a sigh of relief, resumed our own "meeting".
Cass and I decided to go and watch "The Avengers" at Miramar Cinema on Saturday. I suspected that Cass thought it was a remake of the classy British TV show of the same name yet I thought I'd disavowed her of this notion. As it turns out, it was only when the plot line became more and more bizarre as the film rolled on, Cass realized it was not said remake! I wondered why she so readily agreed to attend the movie, a fantasy/sci fi piece with all sorts of super-heroes involved....obviously, her original confusion was the reason! I booked the last remaining seats online and it was pandemonium at the cinema: it seems there must have been a lot of local hype about this one, as every session and the lobby itself was packed solid with human flesh, bulging cartons of popcorn and frustrated workers trying to redirect the masses into some semblance of order. It ended up being pretty B grade except for the amazing special effects, none more so than the gargantuan flying fish/dinosaur attack rocket ships (yes, I know, but really!).
Shopping time on Sunday, and as I wait for Chris's special battery isolator part to arrive in the post, I'm conscious of keeping the car battery running at regular intervals. I haven't braved the surf since my broken rib, so we've got out of the pattern of taking the car to the coast most weekends. Subsequently, I was keen to offer my driving services to cass as she first did the local supermarket shopping, then went across to Takashimaya for a few more specialized items. I dropped her off at the Wellcome supermarket, then drove around for 25 minutes as she got the groceries. Back home with the "colds" before onward to the department store. Cass strolled home from here with her goodies, I returned the replenished car to the school parking area and scootered home and all was good for another week!
We also watched the atmospheric yet disturbing film of one of our favourite books of recent times, "We Need to Talk about Kevin" (Lionel Shriver). I downloaded it, as it's the kind of film that doesn't usually make it to the general release cinema here in Taipei, and we're also keen to watch a lot of stuff at the moment at home due to aforementioned big bruisin' new TV. We're also making a lot of use lately of the PVR embedded in the new set top box we have to get digital channels. There are about 107, but a good 20 or so of those are HD TV, so we've been (or I) have been recording various shows and watching them later. I'm hoping this recent obsession will ease off a bit soon!
Photos: a shot of me "under the lip" at Bashien, some shots of my 50th celebrations, holding back the floods in the basement of the Miramar and a shot of Cassy's new birthday earrings. Cassy is reading Lionel Shriver's "Double Fault" and I'm still on the Grafton.
