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Small Talk: "I'll Take Non-Show Chat For $400, Alex."


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3 hours ago, Grundoon59 said:

One of my favorite movies (which also happens to be a Dennis Quaid movie) is Breaking Away.  All the young men in it were good and the entire Grundoon family watched it many times and threw out random quotes from it that very few other people got (but we all laughed). 

It's been awhile since we watched it. I have to see if it's on streaming anywhere. We thoroughly enjoyed that movie as well. They were all so young in that movie.

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On 12/6/2021 at 2:21 PM, Grundoon59 said:

One of my favorite movies (which also happens to be a Dennis Quaid movie) is Breaking Away.  All the young men in it were good and the entire Grundoon family watched it many times and threw out random quotes from it that very few other people got (but we all laughed). 

That film is a big favorite in the Cochran household, as my late father attended WVU with Paul Dooley, who played the dad. When I was a kid, Paul occasionally came back to visit in Morgantown (home of WVU) and would stay with our family. He did a great magic act! Ever after, we kids got very good at recognizing his voice in commercials, and we were very proud following his career.

About ten years ago, I was flying home from a business trip, and realized that Paul was on my flight. I stopped him near baggage claim, planning to briefly say who my father was and thank him for entertaining us all these years. We ended up talking for about 90 minutes! Such a nice man!

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That's cool to learn.  I know nothing about Paul Dooley off screen other than he's married to Winnie Holzman (which I didn't know until listening to her commentary on the My So-Called Life DVDs [a show she created and on which he appeared a couple of times as Angela's grandpa] and which startled me upon learning given the nearly 30 year age difference; I never would have pictured that!), but I enjoy so many of his performances -- the dad in Sixteen Candles (one of the only good things about that film), the boss at the oil refinery on Grace Under Fire, Isaac Q. Newton on an episode of The Golden Girls, Ellie's dad on an episode of High Society, Susan's dad on ER, part of a hilarious gang of sorta killers on an episode of Major Crimes -- it's nice to hear he's a good man in real life.

I just looked up his credits on IMDb, and am pleased to see he's still working in his early 90s.

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@j5cochran - thanks for sharing that - I have always enjoyed his acting (he is always good and most recently I enjoyed seeing him as one of the priests in the The Kids are All Right.)  Several of the favorite Breaking Away quotes I referenced were his.  But it is always good to know what he is like as a person. 

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I utterly agree @Prevailing Wind.  Years ago Mother Grundoon and I were on a cruise where Broadway/West End Musicals were the theme and we ended up interacting with a number of the lecturers a great deal (my inner Musical Theater geek was in heaven).  Someone else mentioned that they had been on a prior cruise with Jerry Orbach who Mother Grundoon and I both adored.  I immediately said "don't tell me anything bad".  Happily they didn't - all good stories from both the cruise guest and the lecturers who had dealt with him. 

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On a similar note, it's sometimes not a good idea to listen to any podcasts with the star you like.  Maybe they're not a**holes, but sometimes they are so vapid that you lose all interest in them.  I listened to a podcast recently where an actor I really like talked about biohacking (which has something to do with food but I was too bored to care.)  Good thing I wasn't driving because I practically went into a coma as soon as he started talking.

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On 12/10/2021 at 3:48 PM, Prevailing Wind said:

I've had a crush on Jerry Orbach since 1963.

Mine goes back almost that far - I remember hearing his wonderful voice on the cast albums of Fantasticks and Carnival but the first time I got to see him live was in the original run of Chicago.  Mother Grundoon and I were in NYC because she had a conference to attend.  I got to pick the shows (based on my high school age reading of The New Yorker reviews).  The night we went to Chicago, Gwen Verdon had an understudy and Mom asked if I wanted to cancel.  I said no - Jerry Orbach was going to be in the show.  Mom said okay without really knowing who he was.  He was amazing and remained a favorite of hers for the rest of her life.  She was known to just start singing Razzle Dazzle as a tribute to him with very little prompting. 

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I was reading about a family that had a dog - Bernese Mtn/Border Collie mix - and I got to thinking about Saber and her "mutt is a mutt is a mutt" stance.  Of course, she's right, but sometimes it's helpful to know the heritage so you know what kind of behavior to expect.

Living in an apartment, they made this working dog into a cat wrangler. She was in charge of disciplining the cats when they misbehaved/breaking up too-rambuctious roughhousing. LOL.

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Because I've been trying for several years to get on the show, and because James said he read kids books to learn different subjects, I bought three of Ken's Junior Genius Guides on topics I'm not the best in. One is on Greek Mythology, which is a dismal subject for me. I read a paragraph on the page that the book happened to open on. The headline is "The Buttless Wonder" and the writing is hilarious and fun and maybe written for kids but adults will truly enjoy reading these books. By the way, the "Buttless Wonder" is Theseus Hypolipsos. And now you know!

ETA: Merry Christmas Eve, Jeopardy fans!

Edited by PBnJay
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36 minutes ago, zoey1996 said:

I’ve watched the first season of Call Me Kat, Mayim stars. I really enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to season 2. Yes, there were cringe worthy moments, and some eye rolls too. Maybe it’s because I’m in the older, less desirable demographic, but this show is fun for me. “shrugs” 

This older, less desirable demographic couldn't tolerate 10 minutes of it (disliked the original one as well). But there are also plenty of highly praised television shows I don't like.  Mileage varies. Not for me, but good for you!  Fun is in short supply these days, what works, works.

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1 hour ago, zoey1996 said:

I’ve watched the first season of Call Me Kat, Mayim stars. I really enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to season 2. Yes, there were cringe worthy moments, and some eye rolls too. Maybe it’s because I’m in the older, less desirable demographic, but this show is fun for me. “shrugs” 

i liked it too

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30 minutes ago, Jeanne222 said:

So is Ken Jennings now the permanent host of Jeopardy?

It was like a revolving door!

No, Ken and Mayim will both host through the end of the season, last I'd heard.

https://www.jeopardy.com/jbuzz/news-events/mayim-bialik-and-ken-jennings-host-jeopardy-through-end-season-38

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Just letting you all know that I will literally be going off the grid for a bit. No Wi-Fi, internet, cable, phone reception. We (6 family members) plan to connect with each other, play games, walk in the woods, and eat like kings and queens. We picked up a bushel of oysters to have as an appetizer for the low country boil tomorrow night. I’ll try to catch up with my scores when I return. 
🎉 Happy New Year 🎉 Wishing a happy and healthy coming year to all of you. Stay well or feel soon. 
 

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1 hour ago, Mindthinkr said:

Just letting you all know that I will literally be going off the grid for a bit. No Wi-Fi, internet, cable, phone reception. We (6 family members) plan to connect with each other, play games, walk in the woods, and eat like kings and queens. We picked up a bushel of oysters to have as an appetizer for the low country boil tomorrow night. I’ll try to catch up with my scores when I return. 
🎉 Happy New Year 🎉 Wishing a happy and healthy coming year to all of you. Stay well or feel soon. 
 

Good for you! Enjoy!

I've done this many times over the years... especially at this time of year! Makes for great memories and stories. I think it was 2004 when we had no idea the tsunami had hit Sri Lanka - we'd had no communication with the outside world for a few days! Pure bliss of sorts. LOL

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16 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

Just letting you all know that I will literally be going off the grid for a bit. No Wi-Fi, internet, cable, phone reception. We (6 family members) plan to connect with each other, play games, walk in the woods, and eat like kings and queens. We picked up a bushel of oysters to have as an appetizer for the low country boil tomorrow night. I’ll try to catch up with my scores when I return. 
🎉 Happy New Year 🎉 Wishing a happy and healthy coming year to all of you. Stay well or feel soon. 
 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  If you can find the game Merry Dissmas, get it.  We had to skip over the more mean-spirited questions, but there are plenty of innocuous questions that got us all laughing so hard, several of us nearly wet our pants.

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1 hour ago, Prevailing Wind said:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  If you can find the game Merry Dissmas, get it.  We had to skip over the more mean-spirited questions, but there are plenty of innocuous questions that got us all laughing so hard, several of us nearly wet our pants.

Aha... another game lover?

I'm not sure if it's an addiction (nor do I care); however, my name is Bliss and I'm a game-aholic. I caught it from my parents who were bridge-aholics (but would play any game) and I've passed it on to my offspring. Now I get to play with grandkids! Some of my best memories and laughs have a game in the background - everything from Trivial Pursuit to cribbage to Settlers of Catan to Qwirkle to Codenames to 10,000 (a dice game). Being a passionate Canadian, I play several versions of euchre. Canucks may get that. I'll take on anyone, anywhere, anytime, and if I can't find anyone to play with, I'll play with myself. LOL (phone games or Jetpunk puzzles). I do prefer games that don't require an hour+ of instructions.

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15 minutes ago, Bliss said:

I do prefer games that don't require an hour+ of instructions.

I remember once being at a game night, and the host was reading the very lengthy instructions, and one of the women there said "Where's the fun in that?" more than once. It's become a catch phrase at our house.

My daughter got us the updated with new questions, but classic design, Trivial Pursuit for Christmas. I liked its instruction sheet. Very simple and straightforward. Not too much delay to access the fun.

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3 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

I remember once being at a game night, and the host was reading the very lengthy instructions, and one of the women there said "Where's the fun in that?" more than once. It's become a catch phrase at our house.

My daughter got us the updated with new questions, but classic design, Trivial Pursuit for Christmas. I liked its instruction sheet. Very simple and straightforward. Not too much delay to access the fun.

One of my daughters gave me Otrio for Christmas... its one of those games that's won lots of awards. Come on over to play!

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2 hours ago, Bliss said:

Aha... another game lover?

I'm not sure if it's an addiction (nor do I care); however, my name is Bliss and I'm a game-aholic. I caught it from my parents who were bridge-aholics (but would play any game) and I've passed it on to my offspring. Now I get to play with grandkids! Some of my best memories and laughs have a game in the background - everything from Trivial Pursuit to cribbage to Settlers of Catan to Qwirkle to Codenames to 10,000 (a dice game). Being a passionate Canadian, I play several versions of euchre. Canucks may get that. I'll take on anyone, anywhere, anytime, and if I can't find anyone to play with, I'll play with myself. LOL (phone games or Jetpunk puzzles). I do prefer games that don't require an hour+ of instructions.

My grandpa played Euchre every day of his life. Well his over 50 life!

I love Euchre. 

Our traditional Christmas game was Parcheesi!

I was lucky enough to find a brand new old, one of the first out Parcheesi game while thrifting!

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On 12/30/2021 at 10:10 AM, Bliss said:

Being a passionate Canadian, I play several versions of euchre. Canucks may get that. I'll take on anyone, anywhere, anytime, and if I can't find anyone to play with, I'll play with myself. LOL (phone games or Jetpunk puzzles). I do prefer games that don't require an hour+ of instructions.

Oh, I get it.  It's been a while since we've had any tournaments so I have been playing on my phone a lot.  Even though it's allowed, I can't bring myself to bring my partner along if I've ordered him/her up!

On 12/30/2021 at 10:33 AM, Bliss said:

One of my daughters gave me Otrio for Christmas... its one of those games that's won lots of awards. Come on over to play!

Can I come as well?  I won't even have to cross the border (I don't even know if you can these days?)  I would call game night essential travel anyway.

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2 hours ago, ams1001 said:

I have a bunch of other stuff in there, too - a Buffalo nickel, three wheat pennies, a 1944 dime (the year my mom was born), a 1983 Kennedy half dollar, some Canadian coins (mostly pennies), several coins from Bermuda, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic, a British twenty pence coin, a Brazilian ten centanos coin, one that says Eire on it so presumably Ireland and another from France, one that appears to have Hebrew lettering, so I'm guessing Israel, and another that looks similar to Arabic but I'm not sure and I have no clue where that one came from.

Canada doesn't produce or accept pennies anymore! Cash purchases are rounded to the nearest nickel.

I got very irritated once visiting the US, at Universal Studios in Florida. I ended up with a Canadian penny in my change from one of the purchases I made there, which is fine. I knew I hadn't brought it from home because Canada doesn't have pennies anymore and I rarely use cash here anyways. However, When I tried to use it to pay for a purchase (with a few other pennies and change, I was able to produce exact change), the cashier refused to accept it because it was a Canadian penny 🙄 She insisted it wasn't worth the full $0.01 USD and therefore I wasn't paying the full amount of the purchase. In order to purchase the item, I had to break a $20 bill for one cent. And I mean, I could even accept if that was truly the policy that you never accept foreign currency, regardless of how insignificant the difference was, except for the fact that I received the penny in my change from Universal! And I couldn't use it back home, either. I probably still have it somewhere, unspent and apparently worthless.

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2 minutes ago, secnarf said:

Canada doesn't produce or accept pennies anymore! Cash purchases are rounded to the nearest nickel.

The Canadian pennies were all from 1968 - 1991 (mostly '70s and '80s).

When I worked in the bookstore, if someone accidentally gave me a foreign coin I would just toss it into the drawer...if I even noticed. We used a money scale so I wasn't actually counting at the end of the day; it was easy to miss them. Some of the odd ones I have I probably traded for my own coin of whatever denomination it was mistaken for. (The Bermuda coins probably came from my parents when they went there years ago.)

Just did a little google image searching and it seems the one that I thought might have been Arabic is from Iran (so I guess it's actually Farsi).

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My late FIL collected lost money he found. By the time I met him some 30 years ago, he had it in a box and it was over $200. I thought that was cool, so started doing the same thing. I haven't counted it lately, but I'm sure it's over $100. My main source these days are the CoinStar machines at the grocery store. They don't take foreign coins, and people just leave them. I scoop out any change I find in them. One day I collected $14.67! Any foreign money I find goes to one set of grandchildren. They like to play store, so this way they don't have to use their own money. They get a kick out of seeing where the coins are from. I found a 2 Euro coin recently. I do see a fair number of coins from Caribbean nations, I guess from people who have traveled there. Not sure why they would think the CoinStar machine would take them. I'm still surprised people don't check the coin bin when they are finished.

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We’ve a collection of various currencies my father collected over the years when he travelled around the world in the 1950s, he handed them over to my husband years ago.  Euro and Sterling are currencies we use when we’re back home so they don’t count as collectables, I did keep some Irish punts though and didn’t trade them in.  (I’m not alone as there’s something like €350m in old currency still out there 20 years later!)

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1 hour ago, chessiegal said:

Not sure why they would think the CoinStar machine would take them. I'm still surprised people don't check the coin bin when they are finished.

Either they don't realize they got mixed in there or they were just hoping it'd be fooled. (Or they're just using the machine to sort them out but then you'd think they'd take them back.) I have found the occasional Canadian penny or dime left in the coin machine that I didn't realize I had. I always check because sometimes legit coins slip through and it takes them if I throw them back in. 

I have a vase that looks like an oversize old-fashioned milk bottle (like this but white ceramic) that I put my change in. When it was full of mixed coins it was a little over $200; after the last time I cashed it in I started only putting quarters in it just to see how much it holds in quarters. That was pre-pandemic and I've used so little cash in the past almost-two years that it's taking forever. It was about half full in early 2020 and it's still got about 5 inches until it gets to the top. It's ten inches tall and starts to taper in at about 6 inches from the bottom (4.5 inches across at the bottom to 3 at the top) and it's still only filled to just above that point. My only problem with cashing it in is that TD Bank no longer has their (free for customers) coin-counting machines and Wegmans replaced their CoinStar machine with one that is apparently their own but I'm not sure the details on it and it often seems to be out of order. I'll have to check if the Stop & Shop near work still has their CS machine.

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1 hour ago, chessiegal said:

My main source these days are the CoinStar machines at the grocery store. They don't take foreign coins, and people just leave them. I scoop out any change I find in them. One day I collected $14.67! Any foreign money I find goes to one set of grandchildren. They like to play store, so this way they don't have to use their own money. They get a kick out of seeing where the coins are from. I found a 2 Euro coin recently. I do see a fair number of coins from Caribbean nations, I guess from people who have traveled there. Not sure why they would think the CoinStar machine would take them. I'm still surprised people don't check the coin bin when they are finished.

25 minutes ago, ams1001 said:

Either they don't realize they got mixed in there or they were just hoping it'd be fooled. (Or they're just using the machine to sort them out but then you'd think they'd take them back.) 

In preparing for one of my 4 moves since 2015, I CoinStarred my spare change and haven't really accumulated any since then. I can't recall noticing a place to check for rejects, but that doesn't mean I didn't at the time, heh. 

But I can imagine people who leave behind foreign coins are donating them to The Universe, since, like me, their purpose in going to the CoinStar is to get rid of coinage.

I have a small amount of some foreign coins that I want to give away—maybe to my first grandchild (due any day now) in about 5 years?

Hrrmmm...or maybe I could leave them in the CoinStar reject location for collectors?

 

Edited by shapeshifter
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On 1/8/2022 at 11:15 AM, ams1001 said:

My only problem with cashing it in is that TD Bank no longer has their (free for customers) coin-counting machines

I used to work for TD and we got rid of the machines because there was some news expose on how inaccurate they were and people were being ripped off.  We got the memo about 1pm and every machine was disabled the same day.

As a Canadian, I can say that one of the best things we ever did was get rid of the penny.  I hardly use cash anymore but when I do, I usually save the change and throw it into the piggy bank where I save for travel.  When the bank is full and I empty it out to roll the coin it's nice that it's not clogged up with 80% pennies.  Plus, loonies and toonies add up pretty quickly.  Shopping in Europe is a whole different experience as I think they have a coin for every value including all the ones we're used to, plus 2 cents and 20 cents (or whatever they call fractions of a Euro.)  I usually just hold out my coins and have the cashier pick out what they need.

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2 minutes ago, bankerchick said:

Shopping in Europe is a whole different experience as I think they have a coin for every value including all the ones we're used to, plus 2 cents and 20 cents (or whatever they call fractions of a Euro.)  I usually just hold out my coins and have the cashier pick out what they need.

A number of countries have stopped using the 1 and 2 cent coins.  What I miss are the euro coins; dollar bills are very annoying to me.7060903D-26DA-473A-B7F4-9DB4D9EA2D71.thumb.jpeg.e189331751f2e4a44be78408b297ef23.jpeg

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2 hours ago, Caoimhe said:

What I miss are the euro coins; dollar bills are very annoying to me.

I'm the opposite; coins bug me, because bills are faster and neater.

I keep quarters in my car for meters that don't accept credit cards, but otherwise coins get rolled and turned into bills as soon as I've accumulated enough. 

I have, left behind by my grandfather, a bunch of foreign coins in currencies that are no longer in use.  Someone artistic could do something interesting with them, instead of leaving them in a box in the closet like I have, so I should probably offer them on Nextdoor/Freecycle.

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I save quarters separately from the other coins. The smaller coins eventually get taken to the bank & deposited into savings. The quarters go on my Road Trips for the coin laundries and Coke machines.

I also take a bunch of $2 bills on Road Trips for tips.

Edited by Prevailing Wind
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19 hours ago, bankerchick said:

I used to work for TD and we got rid of the machines because there was some news expose on how inaccurate they were and people were being ripped off.  

Yeah, I know. Still sad. I would sometimes count my coins before I took them to the bank and it was always accurate. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was trying to find out what the fee on the Wegmans machines is (around 12%, apparently) and if you can get gift cards (apparently not) and saw a post about a "trick" to get rid of coins by using them at the self checkout...but the ones in my store don't take cash at all. (They only just put them in around early 2020.)

Edited by ams1001
19 hours ago, Caoimhe said:

A number of countries have stopped using the 1 and 2 cent coins.  What I miss are the euro coins; dollar bills are very annoying to me.

When Mr. Zoey goes to the bank, he always tries to get dollar coins. Before retirement, there was a vending machine in his building that took the dollar coins. Now he spends them for small purchases, and also uses them to leave cash tips. It's funny how cashiers often don't recognize what they are at first.

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All the foreign coin talk gave me a flashback memory to purchasing a sandwich at The Cheese Shop in Williamsburg just after returning to school after a spring break at home in Detroit probably in 1980.  I had some Canadian pennies that I had picked up in change and was using them without thinking to pay.   The person on the register was about my age but was utterly flummoxed by the "funny money" and didn't want to take it.  Ultimately the manager got involved and approved the transaction since it was just pennies. 

I apologized and explained how I had acquired them - using them in the border areas of Michigan was so common place that I never even thought about it.  There were starting to be a lot of Canadian "snowbirds" in the area so I imagine it wasn't as much of an issue as time went by. 

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On 1/10/2022 at 3:58 PM, Bastet said:

I'm the opposite; coins bug me, because bills are faster and neater.

I don't accumulate coins normally because I will regularly evaluate what I have and how to get the most efficient change. Even bills are only neater to me if I have as few as possible -- it's easier to know how much I have if I have one $20 instead of two $10s and so on. And I don't know how USians manage with so many bills all the same colour. In Canada I can tell at a glance what I have, but in the US I have to locate the number to know whether I have a $1 or a $20. It's maddening! And even more so for anyone to sneer that different coloured bills is not serious. It's superior design and most countries use it.

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2 minutes ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

Even bills are only neater to me if I have as few as possible -- it's easier to know how much I have if I have one $20 instead of two $10s and so on. And I don't know how USians manage with so many bills all the same colour.

I don't have many bills on hand at any given time - I put almost all charges on my credit card, and then write one check each month for the total amount - so keeping the bills I do have in denomination order (a few ones in front, then a five and/or a ten if I have any, then a twenty or two) in my wallet makes it easy to flip through and find what I want.

I agree that differentiation (like with coins) would make things even easier; the U.S. pretty much stands alone in having all bills the same size and color.

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4 hours ago, Bastet said:

I agree that differentiation (like with coins) would make things even easier; the U.S. pretty much stands alone in having all bills the same size and color.

Yeah, but we've got scary big portraits on our money!  The more I see Andrew Jackson, the more I'm frightened by him.

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4 hours ago, Ailianna said:

But we are the only ones who can wrap a $20 around a bunch of ones to make it look like we have a lot of money! Hasn't anyone seen My Cousin Vinnie?!?

I thought it was also traditional to put large bills on top of a pile of newsprint (cut to the size of a bill) to create the illusion of stacks of cash (usually in a briefcase)?

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