It became very cold with strong winds, changing dramatically from yesterday. At north-east mountain regions of Kanto, it had a big snow. Skiing slopes there have gotten enough snows, TV news reported. But as I did not use gloves while walking on streets, it was much warmer than the average of years.
Early in the morning a guardsman from the security company came and exchanged dry batteries for every sensor switches. After he renewed them, he said no trouble would happen for the coming five years. Through today the company renewed dry batteries only of the troubled sensors. So there have been troubles frequently and guardsmen came to my home many times. Might it be one of measures for overcoming Y2k problems?
When I went down to a post office for mailing Christmas cards this afternoon, I found that New Year Greeting post cards for ink-jet printer were sold out. I was told that ordinary new year greeting post cards were made of recycled papers and that ink-jet printing on them spreads a bit. Although I visited the other post office, I was told the same story. Futhermore they said "Where ever you go, you never could get cards for ink-jet because even at Tokyo Central Post Office they were sold out."
When I asked them I would like to make a test printing myself, they gave me a few sheets of ordinary new year greeting cards stamped as Sample. The test resulted in good printing without having spread. I am afraid that post office staffs receiving customers at counters have been taught as though ordinary cards could not be used for ink-jet printing at all. It is clearly an overstatement.