Random Stuff XXXIII

[6_bleen_7]

(Thanks to jillbertini for reminding me of two of the following snippets. Here, I expand on comments I made in her journal.)

An Assesment:

When you read the exclamation, "What an ass!", is your first reaction to interpret it as an insult or a compliment? It probably says something about your personality, or at least about your age

Comments

[samwibatt]

Keith Knight has (or at least had) another comic called "The K Chronicles", which you would probably like. It was the same sort of stuff, but multi-panel.

Weird about the Canadian ATMs. In England, continental Yurp, and Thailand, the ATMs were all very much like those in the U.S.

[ruthling]

Keith Knight still has both comics, and both have an LJ feed to the recent ones. All good stuff.

[6_bleen_7]

Thanks for the info! I'll check 'em out.

[6_bleen_7]

I've never seen an ATM like it since; the uniquely Canadian thing about it was the "Chequing." In all my travels abroad, only once has a foreign ATM accepted my card-at the York train station in England. It grudgingly divested itself of an 'undred quid after it failed to find even the slightest error in my money-request protocol.

It brought to mind that weird animation, "This Is Not Dave's Planet," wherein those guys travel uncounted leagues within the subterranean planet to find an ATM. "Hope I've got money! [deet de-deet deet] All right!"

[samwibatt]

I don't remember ever having trouble with ATMs abroad. The only major problem we had was in Italy, where an ATM disgorged the correct amount of cash but one of the bills was a 20 Euro that had been torn completely in two and repaired with clear packing tape, well enough that the machine (amazingly) handled it just fine without jamming, but there was a big gap in the middle of it. No merchant or hotelier would accept that bill. I think I still have it somewhere.

[6_bleen_7]

Weird: in the US if you have more than half of a bill, according to the law it's still legal tender. I guess ATMs don't scrutinize the outgoing money as closely as vending machines inspect incoming money. I've known a few change machines that would summarily reject a bill if it had any fold, ripple or nonstandard mark more than 1 µm long.

[samwibatt]

And yes, “chequing” is pretty funny.