So, just to air some laundry that we talk about often, I’m going to put some price comparisons showing the difference between what we’re expected to pay for things at the local stores here in Denmark, and what other people are expected to pay for them elsewhere…

This week’s winners were:

A SanDisk ImageMate card reader
– PhotoCare in Holstebro: 299 Kroner
– Amazon.de: just under 13 euro (about 95 Kroner)

5-CD set called “101 Running Songs”
– www.cdon.dk: 269 Kroner
– Amazon.co.uk: GBP 7.99 (about 70 Kroner).

Plain-colour KitchenAid mixer (this is a long-standing complaint at our house…)
– Bilka (Denmark’s equivalent of Walmart): on sale this week for 3389 Kroner (510 Kroner off!)
– Walmart in Canada: just under $290 (1600 Kroner).

1. the last sin-eater’s grave is getting restored. (i’d never heard of a sin-eater before reading this news item…) link

2.

1. changing from helvetica / arial to century gothic can save a business as much as $80 per printer per year due to the thinner lines in the font. link

2. it is illegal for a british monarch to be roman catholic or be married to one. link

3. roman catholics were not permitted to be in the british parliament before 1830 or so. link

4. the fine-structure constant might not be constant throughout the universe. link

5. if you’re planning on going hiking around angry bears, it’s good to be a baseball player with a decent-sized rock in your throwing hand… link

6. in the future, guitars may play themselves. link

7. continuing with a previous post on this subject, almost a quarter-million really old people in japan are probably dead. link

1. norway fell to germany in 1940 due to a ballerina. link

2. before being filled with vodka, absolut vodka bottles are rinsed on the production line using… absolut vodka. link

3.

1. it is illegal to feed bears in canada. link

2. about 200 to 300 people are killed on u.k. railways each year. link

3. google thinks i should change my name. link

4. japan’s longevity statistics may be distorted since so many of their oldest people are dead… link

1. women in west virginia were not permitted to serve on juries until 1956 – due to a shortage of toilets for them. link

2. female senators in washington had to use the tourists’ toilets because they didn’t have their own until 1993. link

3. men spend between 32 and 47 seconds in a toilet stall. women spend between 80 and 97. link

4. some people will buy anything. link

1. bees think orchids are sexy. (nsfw) link

2. the #1 cause of people losing their houses in the u.s.a. is bankruptcy resulting from medical bills.

3. the richest 1% of americans have more wealth than the poorest 95% of americans.

4. a person who is sentenced to the death penalty in utah can choose between lethal injection or a 5-person firing squad.

1. employees at the carlsberg brewery in copenhagen used to be allowed to drink on the job. they staged a walkout because they’re not any more. link

2. douglas schulman, the head of the u.s. internal revenue service, pays someone to do his taxes.

3. 1 in 9 black men in the u.s.a. is in jail. this causes an imbalance, since only 1 in 150 black women in the u.s.a. is in jail, and 96% of black women marry black men in the u.s.a.

4. 45 of the approximately 850 catholic priests in malta have been accused of sexual abuse of children.

5. fruits and vegetables aren’t necessarily good for you. link

1. in order for a british train to be oficially “late”, it must arrive more than 10 minutes after it should have. in order for a japanese train to be oficially “late”, it must arrive more than 1 minute after it should have.

2. apparently, in some parts of canada, you can stop your mom from being an idiot by throwing a knife at her. link

3. you can’t bribe people into going to church any more. link

4. you should never try to go head-to-head with a giraffe. link

5. in saudi arabia, in 2009, at least 69 people were executed by either beheading or crucifixion. (in saudi arabia, a crucifixion is performed by beheading the person, sewing his head back on his body, and then hanging the re-assembled corpse on a pole for public display for a while.) link

6. saudi arabia is not a recommended vacation destination for self proclaimed psychics. link

7. toads don’t like earthquakes. link

8. shakespeare might have been half-french – but only on april 1… link

9. facebook was someone else’s idea. link

10. magnets can be used to disrupt moral judgements. link

11. dr. seuss usually wrote in anapestic tetrameter, although he occasionally slipped into amphibrachic tetrameter or trochaic tetrameter.

1. it is now legal for children to make noise in berlin. link

2. some people just don’t know when to keep their pants on. link