March 10, 2004

• Heh. This reminds me of a comment by my Criminal Procedure professor in law school, to the effect that only roughly one-third of criminals are caught, and they tend to get caught because they make, uh, stupid mistakes...
• Could it be she really wanted to be arrested?
• IMO, she honestly thought she could get away with it. I believe that there are people who are so arrogant, they think that they can fool the world with silly stunts like that. The fact that she then tried to pay with gift cards worth only 2 dollars shows how little she thinks of the Wal-Mart staff. ambrosia: and that reminds me of the anecdote about the novice burglar who was instructed on his first night out to wear gloves. He and his 'trainers' were caught because he bought the fingerless variety.
• This makes me think of a Beavis & Butthead where they photocopied money. When told to get the hell out of the store, Butthead just kept putting black and white dollar bills down saying "Maybe this will change your mind."
• Did she expect Wal-Mart to have $998325 in change? or a sense of humor, for that matter?
• A store clerk immediately noticed the bill was fake when 35-year-old Alice Regina Pike handed it to her on Friday, Cotton said Hah! I wonder if the clerk ran one of the magic markers first?
• wow! a million dollar bill! but that raises questions. how did they know it was fake? didn't it have the funny ink or little strip inside? wonder what happens if they try to microwave them. did they know what to do when they figured out it was bogus? seriously, though, the larger denomination bills are kinda weird. mostly because we usually never see them. if anyone tried to hand me a bill larger than $100 i'd be suspicious. i did once take a tour of a bank with my scout troop. they showed us the vault. the guy giving the tour handed me a stack of bills, about an inch thick. it took me a minute to register that it was a stack of $10,000 bills. that's the most money i ever held in my hand at once. (can anybody top that?)
• Wow. You have $10,000 bills. The largest we have in Britain is a
• The highest denomination bill that is currently printed is the $100. The higher denominations were discontinued back in 1969.
• yeah, they don't print them any more, but they're still used in transfers of large amounts of cash between banks. i imagine the ones i got to hold for a few precious moments were there to shore up the cash reserves of that bank branch just prior to the round of paycheck disbursement drawn from the bank that coming weekend. for some reason that last sentence sounds strange to me. but i can't think of a better way to explain it. you know, why banks used to get robbed just before payday - they had cash on hand to cover the checks they were about to send out.
• I was mightily embarrassed when volunteering at a book sale in California when a guy went to pay for his books with a $2 note. I didn't realise there was such a thing and got into quite an argument before he finally paid.
• There are American $2 bills? How come I never see them in the States? I miss our $2 bill - but at least we got a nifty coin to replace it.
• Here's a similar story about someone else's encounter with a $2, and how it may be making a comeback. Plus, for those of you who've never seen this reclusive bill before, here's a picture.
• Manager: "Would you please just leave?" Me: "No." Manager: "Fine, have it your way then." Me: "No, that's Burger King, isn't it?" Funniest thing tonight.
• I thought Burger King's motto was "It just tastes better"?
• She was jailed on forgery charges??? Since when does it become a crime to offer barter to a store? What is it even a forgery of? The damn bill does not even exist and there is no crime in owning one! I'd see this differently if it was a counterfeit $100 or treasury note. I hope a good lawyer takes her case and that she sues the hell out of this surly big box and their crony police department.
• She was jailed on forgery charges??? Since when does it become a crime to offer barter to a store? What is it even a forgery of? The damn bill does not even exist and there is no crime in owning one! I'd see this differently if it was a counterfeit $100 or treasury note. I hope a good lawyer takes her case and that she sues the hell out of this surly big box and their crony police department.