common currency

You have to wonder why Canadians choose to make their coins just like the U.S. For example, their dimes are tiny, smaller than their nickels. I've gotten an American quarter mixed up in my change, and people don't seem to have any problem using American coins. And yet, Americans don't really appreciate Canadian coins. I would definitely complain if I got Canadian quarters in my change. On the other hand, I realize that I've started picking up pennies I see on the ground. I think it's because I secretly rejoice when I can pay for things with Canadian pennies -- these objects that have been worthless my entire life!

this is why I can't work in coffeeshops

Same place as the Robinson Crusoe conversation, all from a guy (20 yo?) whose companion replied "uh huh" a lot. He said that he was studying evolutionary biology:

"Spiny anteaters are the closest living relative, of all mammals, to dogs and cats." (He repeated this a few times.)

"I'm so a part of this technological revolution. I'm so into blogs and stuff, like Twitter."

[about his ex] "She's a really next-level individual. She's a really different order of being from most people."

"I can direct my mind's eye to some point in the past, and get a good idea of what things look like."

right-to-left script rendering

I happen to be sharing an office with an Iranian. His English is pretty bad, but he says the election was definitely stolen, and he thinks there's no hope that things will be righted. He also says, which I have not heard elsewhere, that polling stations were "captured," or at the very least there were fake votes, as opposed to just centralized fraud. But it's possible there was a language barrier. Of course, a math researcher currently in Canada is certainly part of the educated elite. I guess the explanation for how poor the fraud is is just that Mousavi was on his way to winning outright, which they weren't at all prepared for, and so they then did a frantic, clumsy fraud. But it's startling how poor a fraud it was -- almost unbelievably bad as a fraud. It almost makes you agree with the Douglas Adams quote

"I refuse to prove that I exist", says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But", says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? it could not have evolved by chance. it proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear", says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.