having lived in houses with “German” toilets for 14 years of my life, I have to assert they are nowhere near as bad as that article makes them out to be. The shelf typically does have a bit of water on it (see the concave part in the illustration? why would it not hold water?) which helps with the, uh, skids. In my experience, one or at most two flushes do the job. And I definitely have experienced the splash with the North American toilets.

Doing my part to expand toiletology horizons,
–Jarek

I’d forgotten that Canadian payphones are $0.50 now. I know they used to be just a quarter, back before I had a mobile. That 30-second cutoff was the thing that took me by surprise, though. It was especially a drag when I was calling a potential landlord from a street-corner and got disconnected halfway through him telling me the address.

(Also, Kangaroo meat is really tender and yummy…)

I see the lack of pennies didn’t make it into your initial observations. I’m also lost on your pay phone observation…our pay phones are 50 cents as well, but they don’t cut us off.

I expect to see picture of you playing with a Boomerang on a campus green, another with you playing a digeridoo, and one with a descendant of a prisoner. I figure the last one will be the easiest. :P

Great post!

The half flush thing is brutal! My folks just built a new house, and they put half flush/full flush toilets in all the bathrooms, but the half flush is still a flush!!!! It just uses less water!

Glad to see things are going well!