Andrew and Kathleen

"Did you want any shoyuu?" I asked, at the steamboat on Saturday.

"Si yau," said Eva, correcting my use of the Japanese term for soy sauce to the Chinese.

"No, shoyuu," I said, before Kathleen and I burst into song.

"Shoyuu! Show me! Kikkoman! Kikkoman!"

"Riiiiight," said Eva.

As Steph and I left the movies on Saturday after watching Star Wars, we were fairly impressed. Impressed, that is, that the movie didn't suck as hard as the earlier ones did. They were really crap. This one was not so bad, which isn't really a great endorsement, but there you go.

The feeling lasted until we reached the lower levels at Broadway, where the advertising hoardings flog off Coles stuff.

There, staring right back at us, was the light saber spoon.

Kellogg's are flogging these off in their sugar-laden cereal, the perfect match of cheap, shoddy plastic and cheap, shoddy breakfasts.

There's your endorsement. Let's face it, George Lucas doesn't need any more of your money.

Speaking of Mao, I really want to get this T-shirt! RTFM!

Badger badger badger! (Thanks Greta!)

Had dinner in Chinatown with the BIL tonight for his birthday. Which restaurant did you want to go to? we asked. Dunno, one with a fish tank out the front, he replied, which didn't really help to narrow down our choices.

He wore his Mao t-shirt. To the Chinese restaurant. Which was an interesting choice, to say the least.

I'm not sure whether it classifies as a faux pas to wear a t-shirt bearing the likeness of a dictator responsible for the deaths of millions of people to a restaurant specialising in the cuisine of said people. If they were offended, they didn't say anything.

For some reason, that kitschy Mao/communist China memorabilia is big right now. China is the new black. There's a place near us specialising in that sort of stuff, Mao and More on Cleveland St. On the one hand, I don't think having items glorifying events that resulted in the deaths of millions is necessary the feng shui I want in my house. On the other, I suspect the absolute worst thing for any dictator is the thought that future generations mock them, rather than tremble before them.

Last weekend, we decided to change our house-hunting strategies. Previously, we assumed that we'd be wanting a two-bedroom apartment, since that's what we have now, and they're relatively affordable. However, that doesn't really mesh with the probable reality a few years in the future that there may be more than just the two of us.

So with that in mind, we decided to look for a three-bedroom place instead. Yes, the price is a little bit more scarier ("You've got to be ****ing joking!" territory, as opposed to "Ha ha ha, no really, how much is it?"), but not THAT much.

And would you believe it? Almost every single place we looked at we liked a lot better than any of the two-bedroom places.

And one in particular we liked a LOT. If we had had a tape measure with us, we probably would've started measuring out where we'd put everything, but that might give our hand away a little, and buying a place is a poker game more than anything else. Like trying to make out you have four aces when you actually hold two twos and a three.

So.

During the week we rang the agent, after having picked up a copy of the contract, which had a lot of information that imparted very little of import, and we told him, "Mate, I know your asking price is $x, and a week ago it was $x+a lot more, but we're willing to make an offer of $way under x." Which he promised to pass on to our mutual friend, Mr Vendor.

Mr Vendor was a little upset about this, of course. And you can't blame him, when the place next door sold for $x+$$$$$ last year. But that was then, this is now, the property market is up the proverbial creek, and we're holding four aces. And we can wait, and in the meantime laugh at the schadenfreude of it all.

We made a half-hearted increase in our bid, which took it to $way under x + dinner for one at McDonald's.

And there we sit, everyone waiting for someone else to flinch, but us holding all the good cards.

If we get it, we get it. If we don't no great loss.

It sure is a nice place, though...

Speaking of segues, you know there's a potential image problem when an article on the greatest game in the world commences with the words "Speaking of penises..."

The above is a screenshot of badjocks.com, with a capture from the Hawthorn-West Coast game last weekend. The incident was caught and repeatedly replayed during the game.

La Bella Pizza is the best pizza place in Australia, no, the entire southern hemisphere. Without shadow of a doubt. It's so good, they're even using it to break prison sieges in Hobart:

"Oh my God, I can't believe this. I'm so happy. I'm rapt. My pizza might have helped save a man's life," said Mr Di Ienno, who owns La Bella Pizza & Pasta takeaways in Sandy Bay and Hobart.

He said he knew a police officer collected 15 pizzas from his Sandy Bay shop late on Sunday night to take to Risdon Prison.

"I didn't know exactly what they were doing with the pizzas but now I know I've got to warn the prison about what may happen next," Mr Di Ienno said.

"We make a bloody good pizza and the prisoners who ate them will want more because they're so nice. A problem may arise because of this. I'm serious."

I've still got the fridge magnet for their pizza menu, two states and three house moves later. That's how good their BBQ Meatlovers is.

"That much craved for early morning coffee could be delivering a lot more than just a caffeine hit," squawks the Daily Tele. "Consumers often overlook the fat content and kilojoules in coffee as it is a treat that slots in between meals and can therefore be forgotten." Oh yeah?

Choice surveyed major cafe chains including Starbucks, where a coffee frappucino contains 1445kJ, McCafe, where an iced coffee delivers 1704kJ and Gloria Jean's, which sells the creme brulee with 1872kJ.

It also found a 480ml iced coffee, which has 1704kJ, and a 480ml iced mocha, which has 2280kJ, from the Jamaica Blue chain.

Another of the most fattening iced coffees was found at Michel's Espresso where the white lightning chiller represents 2231kJ, which is equivalent to one quarter of the total kilojoules required for a person in a day.

The same drink also contains half the recommended fat intake.

Choice says a regular-sized drink, especially those with a dollop of whipped cream, can have more sugar than a Mars bar or a can of Coca-Cola.

It found the drinks with the most kilojoules, fat and sugar were the chilled, iced and frappe coffee drinks.

Not surprisingly, customers who like to enjoy a pastry, croissant or muffin with their early morning coffee are making a hefty contribution to their energy intake.

Well, no der! Any nitwit could tell you that having a drink that make otherwise be called 'coffee-flavoured cream' is not going to be the most waistline-friendly thing you could do. And it's not the coffee. Let's get that straight. There is no fat in coffee, only in what you add to it.

"Those who stick with a long black go easy on the energy levels. A regular black coffee has 11kJ."

See? What a beatup.

In the cutesy Hong Kong movie My Life As McDull, one of the plot twists is McDull, the dim-witted pig who only wants to make his mum happy, deciding to try and compete in the Olympics. His chosen sport? Cheng Chau Bun Catching.

The only catch with McDull's plans is the fact that bun catching is not an Olympic sport. In fact, the event itself has been cancelled since 1978, when 100 competitors trying to climb the scaffold towers to claim the buns were injured when the towers collapsed.

Poor McDull.

But! It turns out that the festival has returned:

The official 46-feet bun climbing tower, 10-feet in diameter, is now buttressed by a concrete foundation designed by government architects and supported by a steel frame. But the engineer-certified structure is covered with a bamboo scaffolding to retain its traditional look.

Bun snatching competitors are trained by the Hong Kong Mountaineering Union. Padding is installed at the bottom of the bun tower.

Maybe there's hope for McDull yet!

Is there a better segue, anywhere, than cooking shows that in one scene show a cute, white duck, quacking happily away, and in the next, the duck has become a hunk of meat on a plate, its flesh separated from bone with the aid of a knife and fork?

After having been driven to distraction by the baby cockroaches which have been hanging around our kitchen all summer, we finally bit the bullet and bought some roach traps.

Essentially it's a black bit of plastic with a little opening that apparently contains "cockroach food", whatever that is, that the la cucaracha hops into. Unfortunately for our little nuclear-bomb-resistant friend, he has just signed a life sentence for him and his mates. The food, you see, is Instant Death to the cockroach nest. The little critter becomes contaminated, according to the back of the box, which I like to imagine means he glows in the dark. And when he returns home, he apparently infects the nest.

Hey cockroaches, here's one from us to you!