News You Can Bruise for 2005 August 15

I am getting over a cold. But, a couple days ago I went to a party at Marc Canter's house and I hung out with Phillip Pearson, and it was really fun. We did the geeks-meeting thing where we talk about our projects and obsessions, and the people-from-different-countries-meeting thing where we compare and contrast our countries. It brought up a funny Canada anecdote which I should share with you, my readers (you'll get these anecdotes out of me eventually).

At the Tyrell Museum they had one of those stretched-penny machines to which my mother is addicted. It was imported from the US, and the coin mechanism had been modified to accept Canadian quarters. But it had not been modified to smash Canadian pennies! Because 1) that would be too hard, and 2) it is apparently illegal to smash Canadian pennies in Canada, unlike with American pennies where it just looks illegal because of the strenous disclaimers that tell you it is in fact legal.

So how does this machine work? Well, the museum keeps around a little dish of American pennies just so you can smash them into souvenirs. This kind defeats the purpose of these machines in the first place, since the idea is that you can get a souvenir out of stuff already in your pocket.