• The Dan (unregistered)

    The important thing was that all of these pictures were taken on a wooden table. Really brings the whole room together.

  • (cs)
    Alex:
    Among other things, Daniel R (Parkes, Australia) enclosed a Telephone Disinfecting Sachet from the TCL (that's Telephone Cleansing Australia).

    TCL stands for Telephone Cleansing Australia? This is a clear case of YYZ (Inaccurate Acronym Syndrome) if I ever saw one.

    Note from Alex: Fixed the typo!

  • (cs)

    A Thales lanyard would have done? Damn, I could've sent mine in. Don't need it any more since the French bastards sold us off.

  • (cs)

    What? You dont like salmiak?

    Send it this way then!

  • (cs)

    Let me be the fist to compliment you on your tasteful choice of wooden table for photographing.

  • (cs)

    Salmiak (which really refers to a specific kind of mined salt, and only by extension to salty liquorice, which is nearly the only place it's ever used) is hardly a Finnish specialty. The true land of the liquorice is the Netherlands, where you can get hundreds of different kinds of liquorice. And the salty ones (mostly with Salmiak salt indeed) make up a big part of them (other kinds are made with honey, mint, creme, or quite a few other ingredients. And of course they can be soft or hard, or even rubbery). And you can naturally also buy directly branches of the sweet wood liquorice is made from.

    My French mother was surprised the first time she tried salty liquorice, but she didn't dislike it. I personally don't like liquorice at all, so count me out on this one :) .

  • D2oris (unregistered) in reply to Tsela
    Tsela:
    Salmiak (which really refers to a specific kind of mined salt, and only by extension to salty liquorice, which is nearly the only place it's ever used) is hardly a Finnish specialty. The true land of the liquorice is the Netherlands, where you can get hundreds of different kinds of liquorice. And the salty ones (mostly with Salmiak salt indeed) make up a big part of them (other kinds are made with honey, mint, creme, or quite a few other ingredients. And of course they can be soft or hard, or even rubbery). And you can naturally also buy directly branches of the sweet wood liquorice is made from.

    My French mother was surprised the first time she tried salty liquorice, but she didn't dislike it. I personally don't like liquorice at all, so count me out on this one :) .

    I wanted to send some good liquorice with some Nederwiet (strong Dutch weed). Alas, I was to lazy to buy some liquorice .

  • (cs)
    Seriously Europe, you really need a ¢2 coin?

    Here in the Netherlands (which is btw Europe..), we've already abandoned the 1 and 2 eurocent coins. Everything is rounded to 5 cents, like we did when we still had guilders (ahh old times :) )

  • Gordon (unregistered)

    The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Pass is from Cape Town, South Africa. The city is right next a fairly large mountain called Table Mountain which I think is about 1km high and has a very flat top, hence the name. It has a cable running from a station near the base up to the top of the mountain. The view is fantastic :)

    The other mountain you can see on the cover of the pass is called Lion's Head.

  • derJan (unregistered)

    Well, we, in Germany, have some stange prices like 2.98 € - don't ask me why...

  • Thomas J. Brown (unregistered)

    Woo! Go Punahou!

    I know I'm not adding anything useful; I just wanted to show some school spirit. -)

  • Josh (unregistered)

    The Drakes Cakes Web site obviously looks like that because their Web designer went into a massive insulin coma sometime in 1997.

  • Tuuli Mustasydän (unregistered) in reply to Tsela

    There was a time in high school when we were working with ammonium chloride in the chemistry lab and my teacher was going on and on about safety and I told him that people eat that stuff. He looked a little shocked.

    But Finns put salmiak in their alcohol. I think that's pretty unique ;)

    ~Tuuli (not Finnish)

  • Sam (unregistered) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    Alex:
    Among other things, Daniel R (Parkes, Australia) enclosed a Telephone Disinfecting Sachet from the TCL (that's Telephone Cleansing Australia).

    TCL stands for Telephone Cleansing Australia? This is a clear case of YYZ (Inaccurate Acronym Syndrome) if I ever saw one.

    It's a tupo. Look at the picture.

    Wait—how you mistype A as L? Qwerty, Dvorak and Colemak all put A under the left pinky and L somewhere on the right. Weird Typo Fyndrome?

    Or maybe Alex started anonymising it, then changed his mind.

  • Migala (unregistered)
    Seriously Europe, you really need a ¢2 coin?

    C'mon, you have a USD 0.25 coin over there don't you? That's worth about EUR 0.02 is it not?

  • Dan H (unregistered)

    Our "crazy British money" isn't just seven-sided: each edge is curved so that the coins have constant diameter, which property being useful for people who make vending machines &c. As for silly denominations of money, our continental friends not only have the eminently sensible two-eurocent coin, but also notes up to the value of EUR500 (slightly more than USD650). This, I understand, is primarily to please the Germans, who like carrying large sums of money on their persons.

    At least our money feels like money, rather than the play money the US uses as currency. Seriously, the USA, try using proper paper for your notes.

  • (cs) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    The Drakes Cakes Web site obviously looks like that because their Web designer went into a massive insulin coma sometime in 1997.

    The lesson, as always, never get paid solely in Drakes Cakes!

  • Chowlett (unregistered)
    I did verify that it is, indeed, crazy: it's a seven-sided coin. Seriously Britain, what's up with that?

    Well, it make it easy to identify at a glance, and by touch for blind people. Our coinage goes:

    Small bronze smooth (1p) Large bronze smooth (2p) Small silver ribbed-edge (5p) Large silver ribbed-edge (10p) Small silver heptagonal (20p) Large silver heptagonal (50p) Small gold thick ribbed-edge (£1) Large bimetallic thick ribbed-edge (£2)

    Oh, and all our bank-notes are different sizes and colours too.

  • Mark B (unregistered) in reply to Gordon

    apparently the 2c coin saves millions a year in coin production. of all of the Euro coins 80% of them are one of the 3 coppers.

  • Sam (unregistered) in reply to Sam

    One of those typos (leaving out "do") is unintentional. That's what I get for not previewing. While discussing typos.

    Or maybe my proofreading skills have dropped due to eye damage from the Drake's Cakes site. If I was wearing goggles, I suspect they'd do nothing.

    Wait—is it Drake's Cakes or Drakes Cakes? The website seems uncertain.

    Also, "http://www.…online.com/"? Why not http://www.edrakescakesonline.com/web/content/html/"?

    I'm previewing this time.

  • Howard (unregistered)

    500 points for the "picture taken on a wooden table" effect.

    I'm surprised no one sent in some "Canadian Tire Money" yet.. even that is almost worth more per/dollar than the mighty U.S. Greenback.

    Hmm, trying to think of some ideas of stuff to send...

    Used post-it notes?, USB-PS2 keyboard/mouse adapters?, 5 yards worth of EIDE ribbon?, bent nails salvaged from a demolition job?

    no, I think a 10-pack collection of 5.25" floppy disks with Commodore-64 games would be best. - Highly prized items, but rather useless without a 1540 disk drive, and a good ole C64 to play em on.

  • My $0.02 worth.... (unregistered)

    Actually,the reason for a 2 cent coin is in keeping with the fact that you need a maximum of 3 coins or notes for each order of magnitude ($0.01, $0.10. $1 $10, $100) (well, up to AUD $399.99 - the highest valued note in Australia is $100).

    1 : 1 2 : 2 3 : 1 + 2 4 : 2 + 2 5 : 5 6 : 5 + 1 7 : 5 + 2 8 : 5 + 2 + 1 9 : 5 + 2 + 2

    The US screws this up with its $0.25 quarters...

    Australia has dispensed with $0.01 and $0.02 for physical cash transactions, rounding up or down to the nearest $0.05

    Foreigners seem to like our currency. US currency is antiquated :-P

  • Nate Cole (unregistered) in reply to Dan H

    I also thought that British coins had different numbers of sides to make it easier for blind people. Isn't it the same with paper money? Different size bills?

    (Disclaimer, this was 11 years ago so my bad if I'm not remembering correctly)

  • Zygo (unregistered)

    Funny, last time I asked the nearest Canadian (myself), we called the $2 coin a Twonie.

    The $1 coin is a recent cost-saving innovation (from the late 80's IIRC). Like other Canadian coins it has an animal on the back, in this case a loon. Thus it soon acquired the name "Loonie". A number of people (especially people who market vending machines) were annoyed by having to retool their equipment to deal with metal currency that didn't have the same size, shape, and nominal face value as the American coins from the much larger market next door, and one of them probably came up with the name (and if you really care about these details, stop reading this drivel and go to Wikipedia ;-).

    The $2 coin followed shortly thereafter. Since it was worth exactly two Loonies, it became known as the "Twonie."

    OTOH, the Canadian mint seems to like issuing random variations on quarters to celebrate arbitrary milestones ("no, really, Mr. Airport Security Person, they really are all legal Canadian money, even though every single one I have in my possession is different!"). Maybe there's a $2 coin with Ren & Stimpy on the back called a Toonie that I just haven't seen in circulation yet.

  • dkf (unregistered) in reply to Nate Cole
    Nate Cole:
    I also thought that British coins had different numbers of sides to make it easier for blind people. Isn't it the same with paper money? Different size bills?
    Right. They're also different colours; £5 is greenish, £10 is orangish, £20 is purple, and I don't see £50s often enough to remember their colour.
  • (cs)

    I'm a cheap-ass... I filled out the form (one of the lucky 500 on whatever day it was), but I only got one sticker. It promised two! I cried a little. True story.

  • (cs) in reply to Dan H
    Dan H:
    At least our money feels like money, rather than the play money the US uses as currency. Seriously, the USA, try using proper paper for your notes.

    Out of curiosity, what exactly is your paper money printed on? As you say, American paper money isn't actually paper, it's some kind of fibrous fabric stuff.

  • (cs) in reply to Dan H
    Dan H:
    At least our money feels like money, rather than the play money the US uses as currency. Seriously, the USA, try using proper paper for your notes.
    Define "proper." FWIW, Canada uses similar rag paper for its currency, and it never felt cheap (I'll use that as a tentative interpretation) to me. Have you Europeans so run out of ideas for insults that you pick on American paper? What's next, claiming my father smells of elderberries?
  • (cs) in reply to derJan
    derJan:
    Well, we, in Germany, have some stange prices like 2.98 € - don't ask me why...

    In Denmark, our smallest coin is worth 0.25 DKK, but the vast majority of prices are XXX.95 DKK (meaning you can't usually pay an exact amount in cash; you must use a credit/debit card, and even then, the store needs to remember they aren't allowed to round to nearest valid coin - they don't always do that). It's a psychological trick to make things seem cheaper than they really are.

  • (cs) in reply to Dan H
    Dan H:
    At least our money feels like money, rather than the play money the US uses as currency. Seriously, the USA, try using proper paper for your notes.

    Hey kettle, this is the pot calling. You're black. At least our money is green. Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where home gets kidnapped in Brazil and they pay the ransom in Brazillian money....

    kidnapper:
    Wow, look at all that pink and purple!

    ...man, our money's gay

  • (cs) in reply to Zygo
    Zygo:
    Funny, last time I asked the nearest Canadian (myself), we called the $2 coin a Twonie.

    The $2 coin followed shortly thereafter. Since it was worth exactly two Loonies, it became known as the "Twonie."

    I remember the "name-the-coin" contest when it came out in 1995. I was always partial to "Bearly" since it was "barely" worth a dollar $US at the time (61 cent dollar).

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that you don't like salmiakki.

  • (cs) in reply to My $0.02 worth....
    My $0.02 worth....:
    Foreigners seem to like our currency. US currency is antiquated :-P
    We have had five new quarters every year since 1999; five commemorative nickels ($0.05) with new reverses and obverses, followed by a new, permanent obverse; a new manganese brass dollar coin in 2000; and two new paper money designs for $5-$100 since 1996. I guess US currency is antiquated for the set of {.01, .10, .50, paper $1}. The cent will have a redesign in 2009. We also have a very ugly presidential $1 series.
  • sweavo (unregistered)

    2 cent coin: well duh, America has no used for a 1c coin but still circulates them. There's your WTF right there.

  • (cs) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    Nate Cole:
    I also thought that British coins had different numbers of sides to make it easier for blind people. Isn't it the same with paper money? Different size bills?
    Right. They're also different colours; £5 is greenish, £10 is orangish, £20 is purple, and I don't see £50s often enough to remember their colour.
    The £50 note is red. The £20 note has fairly recently had a design change, but is still purple.

    The £1 and £2 coins have different designs on the reverse for each year, and the £0.50 coin has been having different designs in recent years. I think that this makes the currency more interesting.

    Romanian notes are plastic with a transparent section. This probably makes them hard to counterfeit by copying.

  • (cs)

    The "Chewie is my co-pilot" sticker (temporarily out of stock, but the shirt is still available) is from Diesel Sweeties

  • Tei (unregistered)

    I think is Peseta, not "speseta".

    Note from Alex: ... which would make sense. "5peseta", not "speseta". Fixed it!

  • Coxy (unregistered) in reply to Joe Luser

    English money's great. You know by feel and by sight exactly how much a coin is. Go to the continent and 10, 20 and 50 cent coins are almost identical apart from a hard-to-perceive difference in diameter and the writing on them (which means getting each coin out individually and inspecting it).

    And it's even better for blind people.

    Australian banknotes are apparently waterproof. <stereotype>probably so it doesn't get ruined if they get drunk and fall in the pool at a barbie</stereotype>

  • sweavo (unregistered) in reply to Coxy
    Coxy:
    Australian banknotes are apparently waterproof. <stereotype>probably so it doesn't get ruined if they get drunk and fall in the pool at a barbie</stereotype>

    It's so that when your hat (where you keep your wonga) is eaten by a croc, and you wrestle the croc to get it back, you can still buy a round of stubbies for your mates afterwards.

  • BadFellas (unregistered)

    Salmiak rules! How can you not like it? :o

    And 2 eurocents is about 3 dollarcents, so it's really f**ked up when they round cash payments to 5 cents (=7.5 dollarcents) like they do in most shops here in the Netherlands. 2 cents (and 1 cent!) coins really are useful.

  • (cs) in reply to webhamster
    webhamster:
    Zygo:
    Funny, last time I asked the nearest Canadian (myself), we called the $2 coin a Twonie.

    The $2 coin followed shortly thereafter. Since it was worth exactly two Loonies, it became known as the "Twonie."

    I remember the "name-the-coin" contest when it came out in 1995. I was always partial to "Bearly" since it was "barely" worth a dollar $US at the time (61 cent dollar).

    I was always partial to "doubloonie", myself.

    I have never actually seen it spelled "twonie" other than in this thread. Everywhere else I've seen it as "toonie" like Alex wrote.

    (When these coins first came out I remember going with a friend to a costume event for a kids' thing we were doing. The costume theme was "Looney Tunes" so most people did Bugs Bunny, etc. My friend and I dressed as a Loonie and a Toonie coin, and we danced around singing "We're tiny, we're toony, we're all a little loony..." :-) )

    Well, I cheaped out and PayPal'd Alex a few bucks. I suppose I could have dug around for some cool stuff, but .. oh well. I liked the logo on the return address part of the envelope when my stickers arrived. There was no mistaking who that letter was from!

  • (cs) in reply to Tuuli Mustasydän
    Tuuli Mustasydän:
    But Finns put salmiak in their alcohol. I think that's pretty unique ;)

    ~Tuuli (not Finnish)

    Nope, the Dutch do that too. Though it may actually be in Finnish alcohol. It's called a DropShot (drop being the Dutch word for liquorice) and is fairly disgusting.

    www.bad-candy.com has a nice entry on "dubbel zout", the very salty liquorice f(l)avored by the Dutch.

  • Börsenguru (unregistered) in reply to Dan H
    Dan H:
    [..] As for silly denominations of money, our continental friends not only have the eminently sensible two-eurocent coin, but also notes up to the value of EUR500 (slightly more than USD650). This, I understand, is primarily to please the Germans, who like carrying large sums of money on their persons.[..]

    Thats not true. Germans put every spare cent in Sparbücher, a traditional investment which offers 0.4% p.a. interest.

  • (cs) in reply to webhamster

    I thought "doubloonie" would have been a great name.... at least for ex-pirates. Never caught on, though.

  • Morg (unregistered)

    Someone should get rid of those telephone sanitizers. For example, load them on a spaceship set to crash-land on another planet.

  • Tuuli Mustasydän (unregistered) in reply to Joe Luser
    Joe Luser:
    Romanian notes are plastic with a transparent section. This probably makes them hard to counterfeit by copying.
    The latest Hong Kong $10 notes are plastic with a transparent bit too.

    Tuuli

  • Tuuli Mustasydän (unregistered) in reply to Fabian
    Fabian:
    Tuuli Mustasydän:
    But Finns put salmiak in their alcohol. I think that's pretty unique ;)

    ~Tuuli (not Finnish)

    Nope, the Dutch do that too. Though it may actually be in Finnish alcohol. It's called a DropShot (drop being the Dutch word for liquorice) and is fairly disgusting.

    www.bad-candy.com has a nice entry on "dubbel zout", the very salty liquorice f(l)avored by the Dutch.

    I think there's a Wikipedia entry for salmiakkikossu, one of those alcohols with the salmiak (flavor?) in it.

    I've tried that Dutch stuff too - admittedly, I like the extra saltiness ;)

    Tuuli

  • ChiefCrazyTalk (unregistered)

    The real WTF is the advert for "Vegetables that kids will enjoy. Was the only funny pic in the lot.

  • Scott Klein (unregistered) in reply to Thomas J. Brown

    Wow. Other dorks from Punahou read this site.

    Too Funny.

  • (cs) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    My $0.02 worth....:
    Foreigners seem to like our currency. US currency is antiquated :-P
    We have had five new quarters every year since 1999; five commemorative nickels ($0.05) with new reverses and obverses, followed by a new, permanent obverse; a new manganese brass dollar coin in 2000; and two new paper money designs for $5-$100 since 1996. I guess US currency is antiquated for the set of {.01, .10, .50, paper $1}. The cent will have a redesign in 2009. We also have a very ugly presidential $1 series.

    Don't forget the $2 bill, which is also "antiquated" by this definition, since its design hasn't changed since 1976. This is probably because they're not printed as much as other bills anymore, and a large number of people seem to think they're no longer an active currency.

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